COLLEGE  OF  AGRICULTURE 
DAVIS,  CALIFORNIA 


UNITED  STATES  ARTILLERY  SCHOOL 

LIBRARY. 

REC'D  JUL    11  1899 
Purchased 


NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 


HENRY  A.  BEERS. 
Ml 


BOSTON: 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND   COMPANY. 

New  York:   11  East  Seventeenth  Street. 


1896. 


DKIVERSTTY 

LIBRARY 

COLLEGE  OF  AGRlCUlTUKI 
— ^    nxvis 


Copyright,  1886, 
BT  HENRY  A.  BEEE3. 

Ml  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A. 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  0.  Houghton  &  Company. 


"T) 


PEEFACE. 


THE  materials  for  a  life  of  Willis  are  rich 
enough  to  be  embarrassing.  Most  of  his  writ 
ings  are,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  autobio 
graphical  ;  and  it  would  be  possible  to  make  a 
very  tolerable  life  of  him,  by  arranging  passages 
from  these  in  the  right  order,  and  linking  them 
together  with  a  few  paragraphs  of  cold  facts. 
Then,  he  lived  very  much  in  the  world's  eye, 
and  was  constantly  talked  and  written  about, 
so  that  there  is  abundant  mention  of  him  in 
newspaper  files,  and  in  volumes  of  "  Recollec 
tions,"  etc.,  by  his  contemporaries.  In  addition 
to  these  printed  sources,  I  have  been  furnished, 
by  the  kindness  of  Mrs.  N.  P.  Willis,  Miss  Ju 
lia  Willis,  and  Mrs.  Imogen  Willis  Eddy,  with 
private  letters,  journals,  and  other  MS.  memo 
randa  by  Willis,  which  extend  from  his  school 
days  at  Andover  down  to  a  few  weeks  before 


76713 


vi  PREFACE. 

his  death  —  of  course  not  without  lacunce.  Al 
though  I  have  not  quoted  very  freely  from  these 
letters,  they  have  been  of  the  greatest  service, 
by  supplying  facts  which  I  have  incorporated 
with  the  body  of  the  narrative,  and  by  cor 
recting  or  verifying  data  otherwise  obtained. 
A  biography  of  Willis  could  have  been  written 
without  them,  but  this  particular  biography 
could  not ;  and  I  take  occasion  hereby  to  ac 
knowledge  my  debt  to  the  ladies  whose  courtesy 
gave  me  access  to  this  material. 

There  are  many  others  who  have  helped  my 
undertaking  in  various  ways  —  too  many  for  me 
to  thank  them  all  by  name.  But  I  cannot  with 
hold  mention  of  my  obligations  to  Mr.  Richard 
S.  Willis  and  to  Mr.  Morris  Phillips,  the  editor 

of  the  "  Home  Journal." 

HENRY  A.  BEERS. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  YEARS    .  1 


CHAPTER  II. 
COLLEGE  LIFE 31 

CHAPTER  III. 
BOSTON  AND  THE  AMERICAN  MONTHLY 71 

CHAPTER  IV. 
LIFE  ABROAD 107 

CHAPTER  V. 
LIFE  ABROAD  CONTINUED 154 

CHAPTER  VI. 
GLENMARY  —  THE  CORSAIR — THE  NEW  MIRROR  .         219 

CHAPTER  VII. 
THIRD  VISIT  TO  ENGLAND  — THE  HOME  JOURNAL  .     .    283 


viii  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   VIII. 

PAGE 

IDLEWILD  AND  LAST  DATS 326 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 353 

INDEX    .  357 


NATHANIEL  PAEKEE  WILLIS. 

CHAPTER  I. 

1806-1823. 

ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  YEARS. 

WILLIS  was  born  January  20,  1806,  in  the 
little  old  seaport  city  of  Portland,  Maine,  cele 
brated  by  the  "  Autocrat  "  for  its  great  square 
mansions,  the  homes  of  retired  sea-captains.  The 
town  had  already  made  some  noise  in  literature, 
as  the  residence  of  that  wild  genius,  John  Neal ; 
and  on  February  27,  1807,  little  more  than  a 
year  after  the  date  with  which  this  biography 
begins,  it  witnessed  the  birth  of  its  most  illus 
trious  citizen,  Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow. 

A  comparison  at  once  suggests  itself  between 
the  subsequent  fortunes  in  the  republic  of  letters 
of  these  two  infant  poets,  fellow  townsmen  for 
some  five  years.  Willis  was  the  earlier  in  the 
field.  In  1832,  when  Longfellow,  then  a  young 
professor  at  Bowdoin  College,  began  to  contrib- 


2  NATHANIEL  PARKER    WILLIS. 

ute  scholarly  articles  to  the  "  North  American 
Review,"  the  former  had  been  five  years  before 
the  public,  and  was  already  well  known  as  a 
poet,  a  magazine  editor,  and  a  foreign  corre 
spondent.  When  "  Outre-Mer "  was  issued  in 
1835,  Willis  had  won  a  reputation  as  a  prose 
writer  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  by  his  "  Pen- 
cillings  "  in  the  "  New  York  Mirror  ;  "  and  by 
1839,  when  Longfellow  published  his  first  vol 
ume  of  original  poetry,  "  Voices  of  the  Night," 
his  senior  by  a  year  had  printed  five  books  of 
verse.  But  there  is  no  question  as  to  which  has 
proved  the  better  continuer.  Longfellow  is  still 
the  favorite  poet  of  two  peoples ;  a  singer  dearer, 
perhaps,  to  the  general  heart  than  any  other  who 
has  sung  in  the  English  tongue.  His  brilliant 
contemporary,  after  being  for  about  fifteen  years 
the  most  popular  magazinist  in  America,  has 
sunk  into  comparative  oblivion.1  This  is  the 

1  This  statement  needs,  however,  some  qualification.  Mr. 
Clark,  of  Clark  &  Maynard,  who  publish  Willis's  poems,  tells 
me  that  there  is  a  steady  sale  for  these  of  about  two  hun 
dred  copies  annually.  Fifty  years  after  date  this  is  not  bad. 
How  many  copies  of  Something  and  Other  Poems,  issued  in 
1 884,  will  be  asked  for  at  the  booksellers'  in  the  year  of  grace 
1934  ?  The  copyright  of  most  of  Willis's  poems  having  lately 
expired,  a  cheap  reprint  of  them  has  just  been  put  forth,  bear 
ing  date  1884  and  forming  No.  352  of  "Lovell's  Library." 
This  seems  to  point  to  a  continued  popular  demand.  His 
prose  writings  are  at  present  out  of  print.  The  fourth  vol 
ume  of  Stories  by  American  Authors  contains  his  "  Two  Buck- 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY    YEARS.  3 

fate  of  all  fashionable  literature.  Every  genera 
tion  begins  by  imitating  the  literary  fashions  of 
the  last,  and  ends  with  a  reaction  against  them. 
At  present  "  realism  "  has  the  floor,  sentiment 
is  at  a  discount,  and  Willis's  glittering,  high-col 
ored  pictures  of  society,  with  their  easy  optimism 
and  their  unlikeness  to  hard  fact,  have  little  to 
say  to  the  readers  of  Zola  and  Henry  James. 

Without  presuming  any  native  equality  be 
tween  Willis  and  the  Cambridge  poet,  it  is  fair 
to  add  that  the  former  never  found  opportunity 
to  deepen  and  ripen  such  gift  as  was  in  him. 
His  life  was  passed  not  "in  the  quiet  and  still 
air  of  delightful  studies,"  but  in  the  rush  of  the 
gay  world  and  the  daily  drudgery  of  the  pen ; 
in  the  toil  of  journalism,  that  most  exhausting 
of  mental  occupations,  which  is  forever  giving 
forth  and  never  bringing  in.  His  best  work  — 
all  of  his  work  which  claims  remembrance  — 
was  done  before  he  was  forty.  His  earlier  writ 
ings  are  not  only  his  freshest,  but  his  strongest 
and  most  carefully  executed. 

Willis  is  a  glaring  instance  of  inherited  ten 
dencies,  being  the  third  journalist  in  succession 
in  his  line  of  descent.  The  founder  of  the  fam 
ily  in  this  country,  and  the  progenitor  of  our 

ets  in  a  Well,"  and  it  is  understood  that  the  publishers  of  that 
series  have  in  mind  the  publication  of  a  volume  of  selections 
from  Willis's  prose. 


4  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

subject  in  the  seventh  generation,  was  a  certain 
George  Willis,  born  in  England  in  1602,  who 
arrived  in  New  England  probably  about  1630. 
He  was  a  brickmaker  and  builder  by  trade,  and 
is  described  as  "  a  Puritan  of  considerable  dis 
tinction,"  who  resided  in  Cambridge,  Massachu 
setts,  some  sixty  years,  having  been  admitted  to 
the  Freeman's  Oath  in  1638  and  elected  a  dep 
uty  to  the  General  Court.  Probably  the  most 
noteworthy  of  the  poet's  forbears,  at  least  upon 
the  father's  side,  was  the  Rev.  John  Bailey,  his 
ancestor  in  the  fifth  generation,  a  non-conform 
ing  Independent  minister  in  Lancashire,  who, 
having  been  silenced  and  afterwards  imprisoned, 
escaped  to  Massachusetts  in  1684,  and  was  set 
tled,  first  as  minister  over  the  church  in  Water- 
town,  and  later  as  associate  minister  over  the 
First  Church  in  Boston,  where  he  died  in  1697. 
Increase  Mather  preached  his  funeral  sermon. 
His  tomb  is  in  the  Granary  Burying  Ground, 
adjoining  Park  Street  Church,  and  his  portrait 
in  the  cabinet  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical 
Society.  What  more  could  a  man  ask  for  in  an 
ancestor  ?  No  New  England  pedigree  which  re 
spects  itself  is  without  one  or  more  fine  old  Pu 
ritan  divines  of  this  kind.  Accordingly,  when 
Willis  began  to  take  that  mild,  retrospective  in 
terest  in  his  own  genealogy  which  foretokens  the 
oncoming  of  age,  —  when  new  twigs  upon  the 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  YEARS.  5 

family  tree  give  an  unthought-of  importance  to 
the  roots,  —  he  bestowed  the  name  of  this  par 
ticular  forefather  upon  his  youngest  boy,  Bailey 
Willis. 

The  poet's  great-grandmother  Willis,  born 
Abigail  Belknap,  was  granddaughter  to  this 
Rev.  John  Bailey,  and  had  some  traits  which 
cropped  out  in  her  posterity.  At  the  time  of  the 
destruction  of  the  tea  in  Boston  harbor,  she  can- 
nily  saved  a  little  for  private  use.  She  used  to 
say,  "  I  have  got  some  Belknap  pride  in  me  yet ; " 
and  among  her  favorite  maxims  were,  "Never 
go  into  the  back  door  when  you  can  go  into  the 
front,"  and  "  Never  eat  brown  bread  when  you 
can  get  white."  The  husband  of  this  lady  was 
Charles  Willis,  a  sail-maker  and  patriot,  who 
was  present  on  the  occasion  when  tar  and  feath 
ers  and  hot  tea  were  administered  to  his  Majes 
ty's  tax-collector  in  Boston.  His  position  and  ac 
tion  in  the  affair  were  represented  in  an  ancient 
engraving,  bought  long  afterwards  by  his  grand 
son,  Deacon  Nathaniel  Willis,  our  Willis's  fa 
ther.  A  copy  of  the  same  is  now  in  possession 
of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society.  The 
son  of  Charles  and  Abigail  Willis  was  Nathaniel, 
the  third,  though  by  no  means  the  last,  Willis 
with  that  baptismal  name  ;  the  first  literary  man 
in  the  family,  and  the  poet's  grandfather.  He 
conducted  in  Boston,  during  the  Revolutionary 


6  NATHANIEL  PARKER    WILLIS. 

War,  the  "Independent  Chronicle,"  a  Whig 
newspaper,  published  from  the  same  building  in 
which  Franklin  had  worked  as  a  printer.  This 
Nathaniel  senior,  as  we  may  call  him,  was  an 
active  man.  He  was  a  fine  horseman,  took  part 
in  the  Boston  tea-party,  and  was  adjutant  of  the 
Boston  regiment  sent  on  an  expedition  to  Rhode 
Island  under  General  Sullivan.  In  1784  he 
sold  his  interest  in  the  "  Independent  Chroni 
cle,"  and  became  one  of  the  pioneer  journalists 
of  the  unsettled  West.  He  removed  first  to 
Winchester,  Virginia,  where  he  published  a  pa 
per  for  a  short  time ;  then  to  Shepardstown, 
where  he  also  published  a  paper ;  and  thence 
in  1790  to  Martinsburg,  Virginia,  where  he 
founded  the  "  Potomac  Guardian  "  and  edited  it 
till  1796.  In  that  year  he  went  to  Chillicothe, 
Ohio,  and  established  the  "  Scioto  Gazette,"  the 
first  newspaper  in  what  was  then  known  as  the 
Northwestern  Territory.  He  was  printer  to  the 
government  of  the  territory,  and  afterwards  held 
an  agency  in  the  Post  Office  Department.  He 
bought  and  cultivated  a  farm  near  Chillicothe, 
on  which  he  ended  his  days  April  1,  1831.  His 
wife  was  Lucy  Douglas,  of  New  London,  Con 
necticut. 

His  son  and  the  poet's  father,  Nathaniel  Wil 
lis,  Junior,  —  the  fourth  Nathaniel  in  the  family, 
—  was  born  at  Boston  in  1780,  and  remained 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY   YEARS.  1 

there  until  1787,  when  he  joined  his  father  at 
Winchester  and  was  employed  in  his  newspaper 
office,  and  subsequently  at  Martinsburg  on  the 
"  Potomac  Guardian."  In  the  infancy  of  Amer 
ican  journalism,  the  editor  and  publisher  of  a 
paper  was  usually  a  practical  printer.  Young 
Nathaniel  was  put  to  work  at  once  in  folding 
papers  and  setting  types.  At  Martinsburg  he 
used  to  ride  post,  with  tin  horn  and  saddle-bags, 
delivering  papers  to  scattered  subscribers  in  the 
thinly  settled  country.  N.  P.  Willis  himself 
served  a  year's  apprenticeship  at  his  father's 
press  in  Boston,  in  an  interval  of  his  schooling ; 
and  in  his  letters  home  from  England  alluded 
triumphantly  to  his  having  once  been  destined 
by  his  parents  to  the  trade  of  a  printer.  His 
particular  duty  was  to  ink  the  types.  "  We  re 
member  balling  an  edition  of  '  Watts's  Psalms 
and  Hymns,'  and  there  are  lines  in  that  good 
book  that,  to  this  day,  go  to  the  tune  we  played 
with  the  ink-balls,  while  conning  them  over." 
A  sketch  of  the  old  office  of  the  "Potomac 
Guardian,"  made  by  "  Porte  Crayon,"  is  in  the 
possession  of  Mr.  Richard  Storrs  Willis  of  De 
troit. 

At  the  age  of  fifteen  young  Nathaniel  returned 
to  Boston  and  entered  the  office  of  his  father's 
old  paper,  the  "  Independent  Chronicle,"  work 
ing  in  the  same  press-room  in  Court  Street 


8  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

where  his  father  had  once  worked,  and  the  great 
Franklin  before  him.  He  also  found  time,  while 
in  Boston,  to  drill  with  the  "Fusiliers."  In 
1803,  invited  by  a  Maine  congressman  and 
other  gentlemen  of  the  Republican  party,  he 
went  to  Portland  and  established  the  "  Eastern 
Argus  "  in  opposition  to  the  Federalists.  Here 
the  subject  of  this  biography  was  born  three 
years  later.  "  Well  do  I  remember  that  day," 
his  father  wrote  to  him  fifty-seven  years  after 
the  event,  "  and  the  driving  snow-storm  in  which 
I  had  to  go,  in  an  open  sleigh,  to  bring  in  the 
nurse  from  the  country.  Francis  Douglas 
boarded  with  us  at  that  time.  He  was  a  very 
pleasant  young  man,  and  had  a  half  promise  (if 
it  was  a  boy)  it  should  be  called  Francis.  But 
your  mother  soon  overruled  that,  and  decided 
that  you  should  have  both  of  our  names,  for  fear 
she  should  never  have  another  son !  You  was  a 
fine  fat  baby,  with  a  face  as  round  as  an  apple." 
Party  spirit  ran  high  at  this  time,  and  polit 
ical  articles  were  acrimonious.  Libel  suits  were 
brought  against  the  publisher  of  the  "  Argus," 
which  involved  him  in  trouble  and  expense ;  and 
six  years  after  its  establishment  it  was  sold  for 
four  thousand  dollars  to  the  same  Francis  Doug 
las  who  had  come  so  near  imposing  his  Chris 
tian  name  on  the  infant  Willis.  At  Portland 
Nathaniel  Willis  came  under  the  ministrations 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY   YEARS.  9 

and  influence  of  the  Rev.  Edward  Payson,  D.  D., 
—  on  whose  death,  many  years  after,  his  son 
composed  some  rather  perfunctory  verses,  —  and 
began  henceforth  to  devote  himself  to  the  cause 
of  religion.  From  1810  to  1812  he  sought  to 
establish  a  religious  newspaper  in  Portland,  but 
met  with  no  substantial  encouragement.  At  the 
latter  date  he  returned  to  Boston,  where,  after 
years  of  effort,  during  which  he  supported  him 
self  by  publishing  tracts  and  devotional  books, 
he  started,  in  January,  1816,  the  "  Boston  Re 
corder,"  which  he  asserted  to  be  the  first  relig 
ious  newspaper  in  the  world.  It  was  in  this 
periodical  that  the  earliest  lispings  of  Willis's 
muse  reached  the  ear  of  the  public.  The  "  Re 
corder"  was  conducted  by  his  father  down  to 
1844,  in  which  year  it  was  sold  to  the  Rev. 
Martin  Moore.  It  still  lives  as  the  "Congre- 
gationalist  and  Boston  Recorder." 

Nathaniel  Willis  also  originated  the  idea  of 
a  religious  paper  for  children.  "  Tne  Youth's 
Companion,"  which  he  commenced  in  1827  and 
edited  for  about  thirty  years,  was  the  first,  and 
remains  one  of  the  best,  publications  of  the  kind 
in  existence.  In  a  letter  to  his  son  he  gave  the 
following  account  of  its  inception :  "  He  was  in 
the  habit  of  teaching  his  children,  statedly,  the 
Assembly's  Catechism,  and  to  encourage  them  to 
commit  to  memory  the  answers,  he  rewarded 


10  NATHANIEL  PARKER    WILLIS. 

them  by  telling  them  stories  from  Scripture  his 
tory  without  giving  names.  The  result  was  that 
the  Catechism  was  all  committed  to  memory  by 
the  children,  and  the  idea  occurred  of  a  chil 
dren's  department  in  the  'Recorder.'  This  de 
partment  being  much  sought  for  by  children,  it 
suggested  the  experiment  of  having  a  paper  ex 
clusively  for  children."  Around  the  fireplace 
where  Mr.  Willis  sat  with  his  children  were 
some  old-fashioned  Dutch  tiles,  representing 
scenes  from  the  New  Testament,  and  it  was  in 
answer  to  their  questions  about  these  that  he 
began  his  narrations.  One  sees  in  this  little 
domestic  picture  the  beginnings  of  the  young 
Nathaniel's  literary  training  and  the  germ  of  his 
"  Scripture  Sketches."  Years  after,  a  college  lad, 
when  shaping  into  smooth  blank  verse  the  story 
of  the  widow  of  Nain  or  the  healing  of  Jairus's 
daughter,  his  memory  must  have  gone  back  to 
their  rude  figures  about  his  father's  hearth, 
seeming  to  move  and  stir  in  the  flickering  light 
of  the  wood  fire ;  and  the  recollection  of  his 
father's  voice  and  the  listening  group  of  broth 
ers  and  sisters  gave  tenderness  to  the  strain. 

He  was  only  six  when  the  family  removed 
from  Portland  to  Boston,  and  he  appears  to  have 
kept  little  remembrance  of  his  birthplace.  The 
noble  harbor,  with  its  islands,  which  were  the 
Hesperides  of  Longfellow's  boyish  dreams,  the 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY   YEARS.  11 

old  fort  on  the  hill,  the  mystery  of  the  ships, 
the  Spanish  sailors  with  bearded  lips,  the  noise 
of  the  sea  fight  far  away,  and  the  faces  of  the 
dead  captains  as  they  lay  in  their  coffins,  did 
not  enter  into  Willis's  experience.  Indeed,  the 
period  of  childhood,  which  has  been  to  many 
poets  so  fruitful  in  precious  memories,  seems  to 
have  left  few  deep  traces  on  his  mind,  if  we 
except  its  religious  impressions.  The  life  of 
his  father's  household,  though  rich  in  domes 
tic  affections,  was  probably  not  stimulating  to 
the  imagination.  It  was  the  life  of  a  Puritan 
home,  of  what  is  called  in  England  a  "serious 
family,"  —  that  life  which  oppresses  Matthew 
Arnold  with  its  ennui;  its  interests  divided  be 
tween  "  business  and  Bethels ;  "  its  round  of  long 
family  devotions,  strict  Sabbath  observances, 
catechisms,  and  visiting  missionaries.  Dancing, 
card-playing,  and  theatre-going  were,  of  course, 
forbidden  pleasures.  The  elder  Willis,  though 
a  thoroughly  good  man  and  good  father,  was  a 
rather  wooden  person.  His  youth  and  early 
manhood  had  been  full  of  hardship ;  his  educa 
tion  was  scanty,  and  he  had  the  formal  and  nar 
row  piety  of  the  new  evangelicals  of  that  day, 
revolting  against  the  latitudinarianism  of  the 
Boston  churches.  He  was  for  twenty  years 
deacon  of  Park  Street  Church,  profanely  nick 
named  by  the  Unitarians  "  Brimstone  Corner." 


12  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

"My  recollection  of  a  particular  occasion,"  says 
an  old  member  of  that  society,  "  when,  at  a  con 
ference  meeting  in  the  church,  he,  as  presider, 
was  expounding  John  xv.,  is  that  I  regarded  it 
as  a  memorable  illustration  of  a  man's  attempt 
ing  to  expound  without  ideas.  I  hear  him  say 
ing,  —  more  than  fifty  years  ago,  — '  v.  4.  Abide 
in  me.  Abide  is  to  dwell,'  in  a  most  monotonous 
tone,  and  the  rest  in  the  same  manner  of  appre 
ciation."  His  rigidity  was,  perhaps,  more  in  his 
principles  than  in  his  character,  and  his  auster 
ity  was  tempered  by  two  qualities  which  have 
not  seldom  been  found  to  consist  with  the  di- 
aconate,  namely,  a  sense  of  humor  —  "dry,"  of 
course,  to  the  correct  degree  —  and  an  admira 
tion  for  pretty  women,  or,  in  the  dialect  of  that 
day,  for  "female  loveliness."  These  tastes  he 
bequeathed  to  his  son,  as  also  a  certain  tenacity 
of  will,  which,  latent  throughout  the  latter's  ca 
reer,  came  to  the  surface  in  an  astonishing  way 
during  the  trials  of  his  last  years.  This  trait  is 
amusingly  illustrated  in  the  senior  Willis's  cor 
respondence  with  his  son  by  his  allusions  to  an 
interminable  litigation  that  he  was  carrying  on 
in  his  eighty-fourth  year.  "  I  should  have  writ 
ten  you  sooner,"  he  says,  "  but  that  Irishman, 
Garbrey,  has  sued  me  the  fourth  time  about 
that  old  drain  which  he  dug  up  before  my  front 
door,  in  Atkinson  Street,  that  we  never  knew 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY   YEARS.  13 

before  was  there.  He  has  lost  his  case  in  three 
different  courts,  and  now  sends  to  the  Supreme 
Court  a  '  Bill  of  Exceptions,'  which  all  my  friends 
think  he  cannot  recover.  It  has  been  a  great 
trouble  and  expense  to  me.  But  I  have  carried 
the  case  in  prayer  to  God,  constantly,  and  He 
has  three  times  defeated  the  extortioner."  Willis 
always  retained  a  cordial  affection  and  respect 
for  his  father,  but  between  two  such  different 
natures  and  divergent  lives  there  could  be  little 
genial  sympathy  or  real  intellectual  intimacy. 
The  tough  old  deacon  outlived  the  inheritor  of 

O 

his  name  and  calling  by  some  three  years,  and 
died  May  26, 1870,  at  the  age  of  ninety. 

For  his  mother  Willis  cherished,  as  boy  and 
man,  a  devotion  that  may  well  be  called  passion 
ate,  and  which  found  utterance  in  many  of  his 
most  heartfelt  poems,  such  as  his  "Birth-Day 
Verses,"  "  Lines  on  Leaving  Europe,"  and  "  To 
my  Mother  from  the  Apennines."  Her  maiden 
name  was  Hannah  Parker.  She  was  born  at 
Holliston,  Massachusetts,  and  was  two  years 
younger  than  her  husband.  She  was  a  woman 
whose  strong  character  and  fervent  piety  were 
mingled  with  a  playful  affectionateness  which 
made  her  to  her  children  the  object  of  that  per 
fect  love  which  casteth  out  fear.  Like  many 
another  poet's  mother, — like  Goethe's,  for  ex 
ample,  —  she  supplied  to  her  son  those  elements 


14  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

of  gayety  and  softness  which  were  wanting  in 
the  stiffer  composition  of  the  father :  — 

"  Von  Mutterchen  die  Frohnatur, 
Die  Lust  zu  fabuliren." 

He  inherited  from  her  the  emotional,  impulsive 
part  of  his  nature  as  well  as  his  physical  consti 
tution,  his  light  complexion,  full  fa~.ce,  and  ten 
dency,  in  youth,  to  a  plethoric  habit.  "  My 
veins,"  he  wrote,  "  are  teeming  with  the  quick 
silver  spirit  which  my  mother  gave  me.  What 
ever  I  accomplish  must  be  gained  by  ardor,  and 
not  by  patience."  She  was  his  confidant,  his 
sympathizer,  his  elder  sister.  The  testimony  to 
her  worth  and  her  sweetness  is  universal.  The 
Rev.  Dr.  Storrs  of  Braintree,  in  an  obituary 
notice  written  on  her  death,  in  1844,  at  the  age 
of  sixty-two,  spoke  of  her  as  "  the  light  and  joy 
of  every  circle  in  which  she  moved ;  the  i  dol  of 
her  family ;  the  faithful  companion,  the  t 3nder 
mother,  the  affectionate  sister,  the  fast  and  as 
siduous  friend." 

Willis  was  the  second  in  a  family  of  nine 
children,  all  of  whom  reached  maturity,  and  two 
of  whom,  besides  himself,  achieved  literary  rep 
utation.  These  were  Sarah  Payson  Willis,  af 
terwards  famous,  under  the  nom  de  plume  of 
"  Fanny  Fern,"  as  a  prolific  and  successful 
writer  for  children,  and  Richard  Storrs  Willis, 
his  youngest  brother,  formerly  editor  of  the 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY    YEARS.  15 

"  Musical  World,"  the  author  of  "  Our  Church 
Music,"  and  known  both  as  a  musical  composer 
and  a  poet.  Julia  Willis,  his  favorite  sister  and 
constant  correspondent,  was  also  a  woman  of 
remarkable  talent,  with  a  gift  of  tongues  and  a 
sounder  scholarship  than  her  more  showy  brother. 
She  wrote  many  of  the  book  reviews  in  the 
"  Home  Journal,"  but  always  declined  to  re 
nounce  her  anonymity. 

Such  were  the  influences  which  surrounded 
Willis's  early  years.  And  if,  at  the  first  touch 
of  the  world,  the  youthful  members  of  the  house 
hold  flew  off  like  the  dry  seeds  of  the  Impatiens, 
it  need  not  therefore  be  hastily  concluded  that 
the  home  training,  though  perhaps  too  repress 
ive  and  severe,  was  without  lasting  effect  for 
good.  Among  the  children  and  grandchildren 
of  Nathaniel  Willis  are  Catholics,  Episcopalians, 
Unitarians,  and  representatives  of  other  shades 
of  belief  and  unbelief.  But  this  is  the  history 
of  many  a  New  England  Puritan  family,  and 
such  are  the  disintegrating  forces  of  American 
life.  In  the  case  of  the  eldest  brother,  it  may 
be  affirmed  that,  from  a  career  which  was  cer 
tainly  worldly,  and  in  some  of  its  aspects  by  no 
means  edifying,  the  light  that  shone  from  his 
mother's  face  uplifted  in  prayer  for  him  never 
altogether  faded  away. 

Willis  began  school  life  under  the  tuition  of 


16  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

the  Rev.  Dr.  McFarland,  of  Concord,  New 
Hampshire.  "  I  have  forgotten  every  circum 
stance,"  he  wrote  long  after,  "  of  a  year  or  two 
that  I  was  at  school  at  Concord,  New  Hamp 
shire,  when  a  boy,  except  the  natural  scenery  of 
the  place.  The  faces  of  my  teacher  and  my 
playmates  have  long  ago  faded  from  my  mem 
ory,  while  I  remember  the  rocks  and  eddies  of 
the  Merrimac,  the  forms  of  the  trees  on  the 
meadow  opposite  the  town,  and  every  bend  of 
the  river's  current."  Later  he  was  brought 
home  and  sent  to  the  Boston  Latin  School,  then 
under  "its  well-remembered  Pythagoras,  Ben 
Gould."  A  few  reminiscences  of  his  slate-and- 
satchel  days  are  scattered  here  and  there 
through  his  writings.  Thus  he  vaguely  recalled 
Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  as  "  one  of  the  boys 
whose  fathers  were  Unitarians,"  and  he  was 
greatly  impressed  by  Edward  Everett,  then  a 
young  Harvard  professor,  whose  stylishly  dressed 
figure  used  to  appear  occasionally  in  Atkinson 
Street,  at  No.  31,  in  which  thoroughfare  the 
Willises  dwelt.  He  remembered  "  the  rousings 
before  daylight,"  on  May-day,  "  to  go  to  Dor 
chester  Heights,  and  the  shivering  search  after 
never  found  green  leaves  and  flowers ;  the  but 
toning  up  of  boy-jacket  to  keep  out  the  cold 
wind,  and  pulling  out  of  penknife  to  cut  off  the 
bare  stems  of  the  sweet-brier  in  search  of  the 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  YEARS.  17 

hidden  odor  of  the  belated  bud."  In  "The 
Pharisee  and  the  Barber,"  one  of  the  two  or 
three  stories  of  Willis  whose  scenes  are  laid  in 
Boston,  the  description  of  Sheafe  Lane  is  evi 
dently  from  the  life.  The  Pharisee  of  that  tale, 
Mr.  Flint,  an  "  active  member  of  a  church  famed 
for  its  zeal,"  who  "  dressed  in  black,  as  all  relig 
ious  men  must  (in  Boston),"  was  doubtless  a 
sketch  from  memory  of  some  pious  familiar  of 
his  father's  house,  whose  black  eyes  and  formal 
talk  left  upon  the  lad  a  mixed  impression  of  awe 
and  distrust. 

Harvard  was  the  natural  destination  of  a 
Boston  Latin  School  boy  intending  college.  But 
the  line  between  the  Orthodox  and  the  Unita 
rians  was  drawn  more  sharply  in  1820  than  in 
1884.  Even  now  stray  youths  from  Boston  are 
found  at  other  colleges  than  Harvard,  attracted 
elsewhere  by  family  ties  or  theological  affinities. 
But  at  that  time  the  cleavage  made  by  the 
schism  in  Eastern  Massachusetts  was  still  raw, 
and  Deacon  Willis  would  almost  as  soon  have 
sent  his  boy  into  the  jaws  of  hell  as  into  such 
a  hot-bed  of  Unitarianism  as  the  Cambridge 
college. 

"Larry's  father,"  wrote  Willis  in  "The  Lunatic's 
Skate,"  "  was  a  disciple  of  the  great  Channing,  and 
mine  a  Trinitarian  of  uncommon  zeal ;  and  the  two  in 
stitutions  of  Yale  and  Harvard  were  in  the  hands  of 
2 


18  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

most  eminent  men  of  either  persuasion,  and  few  are 
the  minds  that  could  resist  a  four  years'  ordeal  in 
either.  A  student  was  as  certain  to  come  forth  a 
Unitarian  from  one  as  a  Calvinist  from  the  other ; 
and  in  the  New  England  States  these  two  sects  are 
bitterly  hostile.  So  to  the  glittering  atmosphere  of 
Channing  and  Everett  went  poor  Larry,  lonely  and 
dispirited ;  and  I  was  committed  to  the  sincere  zeal 
ots  of  Connecticut,  some  two  hundred  miles  off,  to 
learn  Latin  and  Greek,  if  it  pleased  Heaven,  but  the 
mysteries  of  '  election  and  free  grace,'  whether  or  no." 

Of  the  two  great  fitting-schools  founded  by 
Samuel  and  John  Phillips  respectively  at  An- 
dover  and  at  Exeter,  the  latter  had  been  cap 
tured  by  the  Unitarians.  But  the  Andover 
academy,  under  the  sheltering  wing  of  the 
famed  theological  seminary  in  the  same  town, 
though  barely  thirty  miles  from  Boston,  re 
mained  an  insoluble  lump  of  Calvinism,  a 
wedge  of  defiant  Orthodoxy  in  partibus  infide- 
lium.  To  Andover,  accordingly,  young  Willis 
was  sent,  after  a  course  in  the  Latin  School,  to 
complete  his  preparation  for  Yale.  The  acad 
emy  was  then  under  the  headship  of  that  sound 
classical  master,  John  Adams,  who  was  princi 
pal  from  1810  to  1833.  It  gave  an  excellent 
fit  in  the  classics,  insomuch  that  Willis,  though 
the  reverse  of  diligent  in  college,  was  carried 
along  a  good  way,  with  little  study,  by  the  im- 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY   YEARS.  19 

petus  acquired  at  Andover.  At  Andover,  too, 
he  began  to  give  signs  of  literary  tastes  and  in 
particular  to  scribble  verses,  which  had  already 
given  him  the  reputation  of  a  poet  among  his 
fellows  before  he  came  up  to  college.  A  letter 
dated  July  3, 1823,  and  addressed  to  his  elder 
sister  Lucy,  about  a  fortnight  before  her  mar 
riage,  incloses  a  copy  of  verses  which  is  perhaps 
the  earliest  poem  of  Willis  now  extant.  It  has 
no  merit,  but  as  containing  hints  of  his  later 
manner  and  the  unformed  germs  of  that  smooth, 
diffuse  blank  verse  in  which  his  "  Scripture 
Sketches  "  were  written,  the  opening  lines  may 
be  not  without  interest :  — 

"  There  was  a  bride,  and  she  was  beautiful 
And  fond,  affectionate  ;  her  soul  did  love. 
'T  was  not  the  transient  feeling  of  an  hour, 
That  loves  and  hates,  and  loves  and  hates  again,  — 
Oh,  no  ;  it  was  a  purer,  kindlier  feeling,  — 
A  something  rooted,  grafted  on  the  soul, 
That  cannot  help  but  live  and  bud  and  blossom." 

He  also  began  to  wreak  thought  upon  expression 
in  that  common  vent  to  the  cacoethes  scribendi, 
of  young  writers,  —  keeping  a  diary,  "  a  red  mo 
rocco  volume,  of  very  ornate  slenderness  and 
thinness,  in  which  I  recorded  my  raptures  at 
spring  mornings  and  blue  sashes,  my  unappreci 
ated  sensibilities,  my  mysterious  emotions  by 
moonlight,  and  the  charms  of  the  incognita 
whom  I  ran  against  at  the  corner.  This  pre- 


20  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

cious  record  shared  in  the  final  and  glorious  con 
flagration  of  Latin  themes,  grammars,  graduses, 
and  old  shirts,  on  leaving  academy  for  college." 
"  The  Lunatic's  Skate  "  opens  with  some  rem 
iniscences  of  school  life  at  Andover :  — 

"  In  the  days  when  I  carried  a  satchel  on  the 
banks  of  the  Shawsheen  (a  river  whose  half-lovely, 
half-wild  scenery  is  tied  like  a  silver  thread  about  my 
heart),  Larry  Wynn  and  myself  were  the  farthest 
boarders  from  school,  in  a  solitary  farmhouse  on  the 
edge  of  a  lake  of  some  miles  square,  called  by  the  un 
dignified  title  of  Pomp's  Pond.  An  old  negro,  who 
was  believed  by  the  boys  to  have  come  over  with 
Christopher  Columbus,  was  the  only  other  human  be 
ing  within  anything  like  a  neighborhood  of  the  lake 
(it  took  its  name  from  him) ,  and  the  only  approaches 
to  its  waters,  girded  in  as  it  was  by  an  almost  impen 
etrable  forest,  were  the  path  through  old  Pomp's 
clearing  and  that  by  our  own  door.  Out  of  school 
Larry  and  I  were  inseparable.  We  built  wigwams 
together  in  the  woods,  had  our  tomahawks  made  in 
the  same  fashion,  united  our  property  in  fox-traps, 
and  played  Indians  with  perfect  contentment  in  each 
other's  approbation." 

One  of  his  school-fellows  here  was  Isaac  Mc- 
Lellan,  who  afterwards  became  a  contributor  to 
Willis's  "American  Monthly."  He  published 
a  long  poem,  "  The  Fall  of  the  Indian,"  which 
Willis  reviewed  in  the  same  periodical,  referring 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY   YEARS.  21 

to  the  poet  as  "  the  very  boy  that  has  tracked 
the  woods  with  us,  and  called  us  by  our  nick 
name  over  a  hedge,  and  cracked  nuts  with  us 
by  the  fire  in  the  winter  evenings.  Which  of 
us  dreamed,  as  we  read  in  our  blotted  classic, 
'  Quam  sit  magnum  dare  aliquid  in  manus  hom- 
inum,'  that  he  should  ever  be  guilty  of  a  book  ? 
How  it  would  have  swelled  our  idle  veins,  as  we 
lay  half  asleep,  bobbing  our  lines  over  the  bank 
of  the  Shawsheen  on  those  long  Saturday  after 
noons,  that  we  should  ever  play  for  each  other 
the  gentle  office  of  critic  !  " 

In  after  years  the  rice  fields  of  Georgia,  with 
their  embankments  and  green  surfaces,  reminded 
Willis  of  "  the  gooseberry  pies  which  formed  part 
of  my  early  education  at  Andover,  and  which 
are  among  the  warmest  of  my  recollections  of 
that  classic  academy."  "  We  have  fine  times 
picking  berries  here,"  he  wrote  to  his  sister  Ju 
lia.  "  Every  kind  grows  in  profusion  in  An 
dover,  —  raspberries,  black,  blue,  thimble,  and 
whortle  berries.  The  woods  are  crowded  with 
them.  After  tea  we  generally  start,  and  after 
we  have  eat  enough  go  and  bathe  in  the  Shaw- 
sheen,  our  Andover  river." 

This  Indian  Ilyssus  was  the  scene  of  an  ad 
venture  recorded  in  certain  "  Tete-a-tete  Confes 
sions"  in  the  "American  Monthly,"  doubtless 
with  some  exaggerations  for  literary  effect  and 


22  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

with  a  d£noiiment  suspiciously  dramatic.  The 
passage  may  be  given,  however,  for  w"hat  it  is 
worth  :  — 

"  Cytherean  Venus  !  How  I  did  love  Miss  Polly 
D.  Low,  the  pride  of  the  factory  on  the  romantic 
Shawsheen  !  I  saw  her  first  in  the  tenderest  twi 
light  of  a  Saturday  evening,  washing  her  feet  in  the 
river.  I  was  a  lad  of  some  impudence,  and  I  sat 
down  on  a  stone  beside  her,  and  by  the  time  it  was 
dark  we  were  the  best  friends  possible.  She  was  beau 
tiful.  I  think  so  now.  She  was  about  eighteen,  and, 
though  four  years  older  than  I,  my  education  had 
more  than  equalized  us.  At  least,  if  not  the  wiser  of 
the  two,  I  was  the  most  skilled  in  the  subtlety  of  love, 
and  practiced  with  great  success  les  petites  ruses. 
She  was  a  tall  brunette,  and  I  sometimes  fancied, 
when  her  eye  exhibited  more  than  ordinary  feeling, 
that  there  was  Indian  blood  under  that  dark  and 
glowing  skin.  The  valley  of  the  Shawsheen,  just 
below  the  village  where  I  was  at  school,  is  a  gem  of 
solitary  and  rich  scenery,  and  the  overhanging  woods 
and  long  meadows  afforded  the  most  picturesque  and 
desirable  haunts  for  ramblers  who  did  not  care  to  be 
met.  There  on  Sunday  afternoons,  when  she  was 
released  from  her  shuttle  and  I  from  my  Schrevelius, 
did  we  meet  and  stroll  till  the  nine  o'clock  bell  of  the 
factory  summoned  her  unwillingly  home.  I  could 
go  without  my  supper  in  those  days,  though  I  doubt 
if  I  would  now  on  such  slight  occasion.  By  the  time 
vacation  came,  I  found  myself  seriously  in  love,  de- 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY   YEARS.  23 

clared  my  passion,  and  left  her  with  my  heart  half 
broken.  We  were  gone  four  weeks,  and  when  I  re 
turned  the  butcher's  boy  was  engaged  to  Miss  Low, 
and  I  was  warned  to  avoid  the  factory  at  the  peril  of 
a  flogging." 

In  his  last  year  at  Andover  Willis  experienced 
religion  and  joined  the  church.  Any  one  who 
has  witnessed  one  of  those  spiritual  epidemics, 
called  "revivals,"  in  some  school  or  college  needs 
no  description  of  the  kind  of  pressure  brought 
to  bear  on  the  thoughtless  but  easily  excited 
young  consciences  there  assembled.  At  the  first 
rumor  of  an  unwonted  "  seriousness "  abroad, 
occasioned  perhaps  by  the  death  of  a  fellow- 
student,  by  a  general  sickness,  or  the  depres 
sion  of  gloomy  weather  in  a  winter  term,  the 
machinery  is  set  in  motion.  Daily  prayer-meet 
ings  are  held,  in  which  the  elders  play  part,  — 
the  movement  at  Andover  was  taken  in  hand  by 
the  "  Seminarians,"  that  is,  the  students  of  the 
Divinity  School ;  —  the  unregenerate  are  visited 
in  their  rooms  by  classmates  who  are  already 
church  members,  and  are  prayed  with  and  urged 
to  attend  the  meetings  and  submit  themselves  to 
the  outpourings  of  the  Spirit.  Under  this  kind 
of  stimulus  there  follows  a  great  awakening. 
Many  are  "  under  conviction,"  the  air  becomes 
electric,  and  there  is  a  strange  spiritual  tension 
which  is  felt  even  by  the  resisting.  Momentous 


24  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

choices  are  made  in  an  instant  and  under  the 
stress  of  contagious  emotions.  The  awful  issues 
of  eternity  are  set  before  a  roomful  of  boys  in 
the  midst  of  prayers  and  sobs  and  eloquent 
words,  exhorting  the  sinner  not  to  let  pass  this 
opportunity  of  salvation,  —  perhaps  his  last. 
And  then  the  movement  subsides,  leaving  an  im 
pression  which  endures  with  some,  and  with  oth 
ers  quickly  wears  off.  Those  who  believe  that 
the  Christian  character  and  the  Christian  life 
are  the  result  of  nurture  and  slow  endeavor  look 
with  distrust  upon  these  sudden  conversions. 
The  hardened  sinner  may  need  some  such  vio 
lent  call  to  repentance,  but  there  is  a  sort  of  in 
decency  in  this  premature  forcing  open  of  the 
simple  and  healthful  heart  of  a  boy,  substituting 
morbid  self-questionings,  exaggerated  remorse, 
and  the  terrors  of  perdition  for  his  natural  brave 
outlook  on  a  world  of  hope  and  enjoyment.  The 
story  of  Willis's  conversion  is  fully  told  in  his 
letters  home,  and  it  reads  like  a  chapter  of 
"Doctor  Johns." 

In  1821,  being  then  fifteen  years  of  age,  he 
had  written  to  his  father  :  — 

"  I  can  plainly  see  an  answer  to  prayer  in  the  de 
lay  of  my  admission  to  the  church.  I  prayed  that 
God  would,  if  I  was  in  danger  of  making  a  hasty 
step,  hy  some  means  or  other  prevent  it.  I  doubted, 
till  it  became  almost  a  certainty,  whether  it  was 


JjJAN  GENTRY  AND  LARLY 'TEARS:  '       '  '"2 

proper.  I  doubted  «my&©lf,,  m£  pretensions  to  a 
change  of  heart ;  and  my  very  heart  seemed  to  sink 
under  me  every  time  I  thought  of  the  solemn  engage 
ment.  I  was  unhappy,  extremely  unhappy,  when  in 
Boston,  and  have  been,  I  might  say,  miserable  ever 
since." 

And  again  in  1822  :  — 

"  As  to  becoming  a  Christian,  it  is  morally  beyond 
my  power.  I  have  not  an  objection  against  it  that 
would  weigh  a  feather,  and  yet  I  feel  no  more  solici 
tude  than  I  ever  did  about  my  eternal  welfare." 

In  a  letter  of  the  same  year  to  his  mother, 
who  had  his  conversion  much  at  heart,  he  says :  — 

"  I  do  have  times  when  the  tears  of  regret  flow, 
and  I  make  the  resolution  of  attending  to  the  subject 
of  religion.  But  my  light  head  and  still  lighter  heart 
dismisses  the  subject  as  soon  as  another  object  arrests 
my  attention,  and  my  resolutions  and  regrets  are 
soon  lost  in  the  mazes  of  pleasure  and  folly." 

It  is  curious  to  reflect  that  these  "  mazes  of 
pleasure  and  folly  "  meant  nothing  more  than 
innocent  school-boy  diversions,  such  as  black- 
berrying  and  swimming  parties,  or  at  worst  a 
juvenile  flirtation  with  some  rural  belle.  The 
oldness  and  gravity  of  the  phrase,  in  contrast 
with  the  boyish  tone  of  other  parts  of  his  letters, 
illustrate  well  that  moral  precocity  —  precocity 
of  the  conscience  as  distinguished  from  the  mind 


26 l  '   'tTAT&ANrEL^ARkER' WILL.1& 

—  developed  iti  Nfew  England!  boys  of  the  last 
generation  by  the  Puritan  training. 

In  January,  1823,  the  great  revival  which  had 
been  in  progress  at  Boston  struck  the  Andover 
academy.  Mr.  Willis  made  his  son  a  visit,  and 
urged  him  to  join  the  church.  After  his  return 
to  Boston  he  received  the  following  letter  :  — 

ANDOVER,  MASS.,  January  12,  1823. 
Sunday  afternoon. 

DEAR  FATHER,  —  I  received  your  package  last 
evening,  with  my  Testament,  etc.,  inclosed.  As  the 
word  of  God  I  prize  it,  and  as  the  gift  of  my  affec 
tionate  father  I  love  it,  and  shall  always  look  upon  it 
as  a  remembrance  of  an  era  in  my  feelings  which  I 
hope  I  shall  always  be  thankful  for.  You  cannot  im 
agine  how  much  your  visit  and  advice  strengthened 
me  in  my  resolutions,  and  spurred  me  forward  in  the 
good  work  I  had  begun.  I  hope  I  have  now  the  as 
surance  of  being  an  heir  of  life  and  a  recipient  of  the 
protection  which  the  wings  of  a  Saviour's  mercy  must 
afford  to  those  who  are  gathered  under  them.  My 
hope  is  sometimes  shaken  when  I  find  my  thoughts 
wandering  to  other  subjects  while  the  ordinances  of 
God  are  administering  before  my  eyes.  But  the  mo 
ment  that  I  get  upon  my  knees  and  pray  for  strength 
I  feel  my  assurance  renewed,  and  rise  happier  and 
happier  from  every  renewal  of  my  supplications.  .  .  . 
Saturday  evening  I  attended  our  usual  meeting  in  the 
academy  for  the  first  time  since  I  have  been  in  An 
dover.  It  is  conducted  by  the  pious  scholars  of  the 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY   YEARS.  27 

academy  in  succession,  and  is  very  interesting.  This 
evening  Dr.  Shedd  preached  the  lecture,  and  after 
meeting  there  is  to  be  another  at  Mr.  Adams's  house. 
So  you  see,  pa,  we  are  engaged  here,  and  have  reason 
to  hope  that  many  will  be  inquiring  the  way  to  the 
foot  of  the  cross.  ...  —  Nine  o'clock.  I  have  been 
to  meeting  at  the  chapel,  and  after  that  attended  a 
prayer-meeting  at  Mr.  Adams's.  They  were  both 
very  solemn.  Louis  Dwight  led  the  last.  —  Monday 
evening,  12  o'clock.  I  have  truly  spent  an  evening 
of  happiness,  and  I  thought  I  must  open  my  letter 
and  tell  you.  At  half-past  six  William  Adams  and 
I  had  appointed  a  meeting,  to  be  conducted  wholly  by 
ourselves.  We  had  invited  only  a  few,  but  when  we 
got  there  it  was  so  crowded  that  I  could  scarcely 
make  my  way  through  the  room  to  the  Bible-stand. 
I  believe  nearly  all  our  unconverted  brethren  were 
there.  .  .  .  After  it  was  dismissed,  many  seemed  to 
linger,  as  if  they  did  not  want  to  go,  and  we  con 
versed  with  some  of  them.  I  then  went  into  Cutler's 
room,  and  Allen  and  I  stayed  there  till  almost  eleven 
o'clock.  There  were  several  of  the  Seminarians  there, 
and  we  prayed  and  sung,  prayed  and  sung,  till  it 
seemed  a  little  heaven  on  earth.  The  seriousness  in 
creases  ;  many  more  are  deeply  impressed,  and  the 
academy  presents  solemn  countenances  generally.  It 
is  late,  and  my  eyes  smart  badly. 

Your  affectionate  son, 

N.  P.  WILLIS. 

The  William  Adams  here  mentioned  was  a  son 


28  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

of  the  principal  of  the  academy,  and  was  after 
wards  Willis's  classmate  at  Yale.  Louis  Dwight 
was  a  theological  student,  who  a  year  later  was 
married  to  Willis's  second  sister,  Louisa.  The 
subsequent  progress  of  the  revival  is  related  in 
the  following  letter,  written  two  or  three  days 
later :  — 

ANDOVER,  MASS.,  January  15. 
Wednesday  evening,  12  o'clock. 

MY  DEAR  FATHER,  —  My  heart  is  so  overflowing 
with  joy  and  gratitude  and  happiness  that  I  could 
not  rest  till  I  had  sat  down  and  told  you  all.  We 
have  had  a  meeting  in  Allen's  room  to-night.  Mr. 
Styles  was  there,  and  talked  so  that  I  thought  I  could 
almost  see  a  halo  round  his  head,  and  expected  him 
to  turn  into  St.  Paul  come  down  again  from  heaven. 
After  meeting  Mr.  S.  told  them  the  meeting  was 
closed,  but  if  any  wished  to  converse  with  him  or  the 
other  professors  of  religion  in  the  room,  they  might 
tarry.  The  room  was  crowded,  body  and  all,  so  that 
you  could  not  have  got  through,  but  no  one  stirred. 
Sobbing  and  weeping  was  heard  all  round  the  room. 
William  Adams,  Allen,  Styles,  and  I  then  went  round 
and  conversed  with  them.  They  all  burst  into  tears 
immediately,  and  listened  with  the  greatest  eagerness, 
and  when  I  got  up  to  go  to  the  next  one,  they  held 
on  to  me  as  though  salvation  depended  on  my  talking 
with  them.  Isaac  Stuart  sobbed  aloud  the  whole 
meeting  time.  Joseph  Jenkins  ivas  in  tears,  and 
came  down  to  my  room  after  meeting  and  asked  me 
to  pray  for  and  with  him.  He  said  he  could  not  pray 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY   YEARS.  29 

himself ;  he  dared  not.  I  gave  him  the  best  advice 
I  could  and  prayed  with  him,  and  he  is  now  in  his 
room,  as  I  hope  praying  for  himself.  I  talked  with 
little  Joshua  Huntingdon,  and  told  him  about  his 
father.  He  wept,  and  promised  to  go  home  and  pray* 
J.  C.  Alvord,  a  member  of  my  class  and  &  fine  fellow, 
was  in  the  greatest  misery.  He  could  not  sit  upon 
his  chair,  and  took  me  out  of  the  meeting  to  go  to  my 
room  and  pray  with  him.  Jno.  Tappan  of  Boston 
was  very  deeply  affected.  I  conversed  with  Darrach 
of  Philadelphia,  Carter  of  Virginia,  King  of  Convers, 
and  several  others.  They  all  seemed  to  feel  very 
deeply,  and  all  begged  me  earnestly  to  pray  for  them. 
We  could  not  get  them  away.  They  stood  round 
weeping  and  looking  for  some  one  to  say  something 
to  them.  Oh,  my  dear  father,  what  can  we  render  to 
God  for  all  his  mercies  !  Allen  has  been  down  in  my 
room  several  times  to  pray  for  some  particular  one. 
There  were  so  many  to  pray  for  that  we  have  been 
on  our  knees  from  seven  o'clock  till  now  almost  all 
the  time.  Kennett,  my  room-mate,  is  very  much  af 
fected.  He  fears  to  delay  repentance,  but  says  his 
father  won't  like  it  when  he  goes  back  to  Russia,  and 
that  there  are  no  Christians  in  Russia.  .  .  .  Prayer  as 
cends  continually,  sinners  are  repenting,  and  I  am  as 
proud  as  Lucifer.  I  feel  as  if  I  was  going  to  do  all 
myself ;  as  if  I  could  convert  a  thousand  without  God, 
if  I  only  told  them  the  truth.  Oh,  pray  that  I  may 
have  humility  !  It  is  and  must  be  the  burden  of  my 
supplications." 


30  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

Of  the  names  mentioned  in  this  letter,  that  of 
Isaac  Stuart  is  not  unknown  to  fame.  Joseph 
Jenkins  afterwards  became  Willis's  brother-in- 
law,  marrying  his  sister  Mary  in  1831.  He  was 
from  Boston,  and  was  graduated  at  Yale  the 
year  after  Willis. 


CHAPTER  II. 

1823-1827. 

COLLEGE   LIFE. 

IN  the  fall  of  1823,  Willis  entered  Yale. 
Commencement  was  then  held  in  September 
and  first  term  opened  late  in  October.  College 
life  left  a  more  enduring  impress  upon  Willis 
than  upon  almost  any  other  American  writer. 
It  furnished  him  with  a  fund  of  literary  ma 
terial.  It  brought  him  into  the  sunshine,  and 
changed  the  homely  school-boy  chrysalis  into  a 
butterfly  of  uncommon  splendor  and  spread  of 
wing.  During  freshman  year  he  lodged  in  the 
family  of  Mr.  Townsend,  opposite  South  Col 
lege,  with  other  members  of  the  Andover  con 
tingent.  One  of  these  was  Henry  Durant,  who 
was  Willis's  chum  all  through  the  four  years 
of  the  course.  He  was  a  serious-minded  lad, 
a  hard  student,  who  took  high  rank  in  the  ap 
pointment  list,  and  his  influence  over  his  less 
steady  room-mate  was  always  for  good.  He 
became  in  time  the  founder  and  first  presi 
dent  of  the  University  of  California,  and  a  man 


32  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

of  wide  influence  in  educational  and  religious 
matters  on  the  Pacific  coast.  Among  Willis's 
other  intimates  in  his  own  class  were  Joseph 
H.  Towne,  also  a  Boston  boy,  and  afterwards  a 
doctor  of  divinity ;  and  "  Bob "  Richards,  of 
New  York,  who  took  him  home  with  him  in 
vacations,  and  introduced  him  to  the  gayeties 
of  the  metropolis.  Class  lines  were  not  drawn 
very  sharply  then,  and  one  of  his  best  friends 
in  college  was  George  J.  Pumpelly  of  Owego, 
New  York.  Their  friendship  was  continued 
or  resumed  in  later  life,  when  Willis  bought 
from  Pumpelly  the  little  domain  of  Glenmary ; 
and  settled  in  his  neighborhood  on  Owego 
Creek. 

Next  after  Willis  himself,  the  most  distin 
guished  member  of  the  class  of  1827  was  Hor 
ace  Bushnell.  In  senior  year  the  two  roomed 
in  the  same  hall  —  the  north  entry  of  North 
College ;  and  in  1848,  on  the  occasion  of  Bush 
nell' s  preaching  a  sermon  at  Boston  to  the  Uni 
tarians,  which  excited  much  public  comment, 
Willis  gave  some  reminiscences  of  his  quondam 
classmate  in  the  "Home  Journal,"  telling,  among 
other  things,  how  Bushnell  once  came  into  his 
room  and  taught  him  how  to  hone  a  razor.  He 
described  him  as  a  "black-haired,  earnest-eyed, 
sturdy,  carelessly  dressed,  athletic,  and  independ 
ent  good  fellow,  popular  in  spite  of  being  both 


COLLEGE  LIFE.  33 

blunt  and  exemplary."  Bushnell  was  a  leader 
in  his  class;  Willis  decidedly  not.  They  be 
longed  to  different  sets,  and  there  was  little  in 
common  between  the  elegant  young  poet  and 
ladies'  man  and  the  rough,  strong  farmer  lad 
from  the  Litchfield  hills.  They  met  once  more 
in  after  years,  —  in  1845,  on  the  Rhine,  both  in 
pursuit  of  health. 

Henry  Wikoff  of  Philadelphia  —  afterwards, 
with  the  titular  embellishment  of  "Chevalier," 
a  familiar,  not  to  say  flamboyant,  figure  in  sev 
eral  European  capitals,  and  the  winner  of  fame 
at  home  as  the  importer  of  Fanny  Elssler  and 
founder  of  the  "  New  York  Republic  "  —  hap 
pened  to  be  in  New  Haven  during  the  summer 
of  1827.  He  was  preparing  to  enter  college, 
which  he  did  with  the  class  of  '31,  but  was 
prematurely  graduated  by  reason  of  sundry 
irregularities.  In  his  amusing  "  Reminiscences 
of  an  Idler,"  published  in  1880,  he  gave  the  fol 
lowing  description  of  two  undergraduates  with 
whom  he  was  subsequently  more  nearly  asso 
ciated  :  — 

"  I  also  remember  two  men  who  graduated  in  the 
class  of  1827,  that  were  frequently  pointed  out  to 
me  as  its  most  conspicuous  members.  One  was  the 
son  of  a  very  prominent  statesman,  which,  in  fact,  ex 
plained  the  notice  he  attracted ;  but  there  was  enough 
of  individuality  about  John  Van  Buren  to  command 


34  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

attention.  He  had  already  revealed  the  traits  which 
distinguished  him  in  after  life,  —  easy  and  careless 
in  manner,  bold  in  character,  and  of  an  aggressive 
turn  of  mind.  His  rival  in  notoriety  had  no  hered 
itary  claims  to  support  him,  but  he  was  gifted  with 
a.  rare  poetical  talent  that  had  already  secured  him 
distinction  both  in  and  out  of  college.  His  tone  and 
bearing  were  aristocratic,  not  unmixed  with  hauteur, 
and  though  admired  for  his  abilities  he  never  com 
manded  the  sympathies  of  his  comrades.  Such  was 
N.  P.  Willis,  and  such  he  remained  to  the  end  of  his 
life.  Neither  of  these  graduates,  if  I  remember, 
bore  off  '  honors ; '  but  Willis  was  requested  by  his 
class,  with  the  approval  of  the  faculty,  to  deliver  a 
poem  at  the  Commencement  of  1827.  I  was  too 
young  to  approach  these  Titans,  as  I  regarded  them, 
and  was  content  to  gaze  on  them  with  deference  as 
they  swept  by  me  in  the  street.  In  after  years  I 
became  intimate  with  them  both." 

The  genial  chevalier's  memory  misled  him 
slightly  in  placing  "  Prince  John,"  as  he  was 
called,  in  the  same  class  with  Willis.  He  was 
a  member  of  '28,  which  he  joined  in  junior 
year,  and  like  Willis  was  a  great  wit  and  a 
great  beau.  These  three  contemporaries,  sen 
ior,  junior,  and  sub-freshman,  were  strangely 
juggled  together  again  by  Time,  the  conjurer. 
They  met  in  the  famous  Forrest  trial,  where 
Van  Buren  figured  as  the  defendant's  counsel, 
and  Willis  as  a  particeps  criminis  and  witness 


COLLEGE  LIFE.  35 

for  the  plaintiff.  Wikoff,  who  had  known  For 
rest  intimately  before  and  after  his  marriage, 
and  had  traveled  extensively  with  him  in  Rus 
sia  and  elsewhere,  was  at  first  made  a  party  in 
the  actor's  charges  against  his  wife,  but  his 
name  was  withdrawn  from  the  case  before  it 
came  to  trial. 

Yale  was  then  under  the  mild  government  of 
President  Day.  Silliman,  Knight,  Kingsley, 
Fitch,  and  Goodrich  were  among  the  professors, 
and  among  the  tutors  were  Theodore  Woolsey 
and  Edward  Beecher.  The  last  afterwards  sus 
tained  another  relation  to  Willis,  as  pastor  of 
Park  Street  Church.  Student  life  in  the  twen 
ties  was  a  much  simpler  existence  than  it  is  in 
the  eighties.  That  network  of  interests  which 
makes  the  college  world  of  to-day  such  a  stir 
ring  microcosm,  —  with  its  athletic  and  social 
clubs,  its  regattas,  promenade  concerts,  and 
class-day  gayeties,  its  undergraduate  newspa 
pers  and  magazines,  and  its  lavish  expenditure 
upon  society  halls,  boat-houses,  ball-grounds,  etc., 
—  was  all  undreamed  of.  Far  from  owning  a 
yacht  or  a  dog-cart,  the  Yalensian  of  those  days 
seldom  owned  a  carpet  or  a  paper-hanging. 
When  those  unwonted  luxuries  were  introduced 
into  his  room  by  Freshman  Wikoff,  the  rumor 
of  this  offense  against  the  unwritten  sumptuary 
laws  of  the  college  reached  the  ear  of  Professor 


36  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

Silliman.  He  visited  the  apartment,  and  after 
inspecting  it  gravely  said,  with  a  frown,  to  its 
abashed  occupant,  "  All  this  love  of  externals, 
young  man,  argues  indifference  to  the  more 
necessary  furniture  of  the  brain,  which  is  your 
spiritual  business  here."  The  time -honored 
paragraph  in  the  catalogue  on  "necessary  ex 
penses  "  gave  the  annual  maximum  as  two  hun 
dred  dollars.  That  paragraph  has  always  been 
over  sanguine,  but  probably  four  or  five  hun 
dred  a  year  was  the  average  cost  of  a  college 
education  in  1825.  During  each  of  his  last 
two  years  Willis  spent  about  six  hundred.  Life 
in  college  was  not  only  plain,  but  decidedly 
rough.  It  was  the  era  of  "  Bully  Clubs,"  town 
and  gown  rows,  "  Bread  and  Butter  Rebel 
lions,"  etc.  It  was  the  thing  to  paint  the 
president's  horse  red,  white,  and  blue,  and  to 
put  a  cow  in  the  belfry.  In  1824  a  mob  threat 
ened  the  Medical  School  because  a  body  had 
been  dug  up  by  resurrectionists.  The  South 
erners,  then  a  large  element  at  Yale,  were  par 
ticularly  wild  and  turbulent.  Christmas,  which 
the  Puritan  college  refused  to  make  a  holiday 
of,  was  their  recognized  Saturnalia. 

"  The  day,"  wrote  Willis  in  a  freshman  letter  to 
his  father,  "  is  the  greatest  of  the  year  at  the  South, 
and  our  Southern  students  seem  disposed  to  be  rest 
less  under  the  restriction  of  a  lesson  on  playday. 


COLLEGE  LIFE.  37 

There  were  many  of  them  drunk  last  evening,  and 
still  more  to-day.  Christmas  has  always  been,  ever 
since  the  establishment  of  the  college,  emphatically  a 
day  of  tricks  :  windows  broken,  bell-rope  cut,  fresh 
men  squirted,  and  every  imaginable  scene  of  dissipa 
tion  acted  out  in  full.  Last  night  they  barred  the 
entry  doors  of  the  South  College,  to  exclude  the  gov 
ernment,  and  then  illuminated  the  building.  This 
morning  the  recitation-room  doors  were  locked  and 
the  key  stolen,  and  we  were  obliged  to  knock  down 
the  doors  to  get  in ;  and  then  we  were  not  much 
better  off,  for  the  lamps  were  full  of  water  and  the 
wicks  gone.  However,  we  procured  others,  and 
went  on  with  the  lesson." 

Wikoff  tells  of  a  fight  in  a  college  room,  in 
which  a  dirk  was  used,  between  a  South  Caro 
lina  student  named  Albert  Smith  and  another 
Southerner,  which  resulted  in  the  expulsion  of 
both.  Smith,  who  stood  at  the  head  of  his  class, 
afterwards  changed  his  name  to  Rhett,  and  be 
came  a  member  of  his  state's  legislature,  but 
died  prematurely. 

New  Haven  in  1823-27  was  not  the  consider 
able  manufacturing  city  of  to-day,  but  a  rural 
town  with  a  population  of  about  nine  thousand. 
West  of  the  college  yard  only  two  streets  were 
laid  out.  Beyond  these,  along  the  Derby  turn 
pike,  stretched  a  level  of  sandy  pastures,  alive 
with  grasshoppers,  where  the  young  orators, 
practicing  for  debates  in  "  Linonia  "  or  "  Broth- 


38  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

ers,"  or  for  declamations  before  the  Professor 
of  Rhetoric,  used  to  go  to  "explode  the  ele 
ments."  Down  by  the  bay,  in  a  region  now 
occupied  by  great  factories,  stood  the  old  "  Pa 
vilion,"  a  famous  seaside  hotel  much  resorted 
to  by  Southern  families.  The  first-  railroad 
from  New  Haven  was  laid  in  1839.  As  yet 
even  the  Farmington  Canal  was  only  projected. 
Willis  and  the  Boston  contingent  used  to  come 
all  the  way .  by  stage-coach,  passing  through 
Framingham,  Worcester,  and  Hartford,  —  in 
which  last  he  had  acquaintances,  with  whom  he 
sometimes  spent  a  day  en  route.  Anthracite 
coal  was  not  in  use  in  New  Haven  before  1827. 
Citizens  and  students  alike  depended  on  wood, 
the  latter  buying  theirs  at  the  regular  wood- 
stand  near  South  College,  and  having  it  cut  in 
the  yard  behind  the  colleges,  wood-saws  not 
being  in  general  vogue.  The  habits  of  the  col 
legians,  from  a  hygienic  point  of  view,  were 
usually  bad.  They  sat  up  late  drinking  strong 
coffee  in  their  rooms,  rose  very  early  perforce, 
prayed  and  recited  on  an  empty  stomach,  and 
took  little  regular  exercise.  Dyspepsia  was  nat 
urally  rife. 

But  en  revanche  New  Haven  was  a  beautiful 
little  city,  with  a  homogeneous  population  and  a 
charming  society,  and  better  fitted  in  some  re 
spects  for  the  seat  of  a  university  than  it  is 


COLLEGE  LIFE.  39 

to-day.  It  was  already,  thanks  to  the  public 
spirit  of  Governor  Hillhouse,  the  City  of  Elms ; 
and  it  is  hard  to  walk  through  Temple  Street  of 
a  moonlight  evening  without  a  regretful  recollec 
tion  of  Willis's  "  Rosa  Matilda  description,"  in 
"  Edith  Linsey,"  of  a  place  that  must  have 
been  all  Temple  Streets,  —  a  dream-city  of 
shaded  squares  and  white  -  piazzaed  mansions 
shining  among  cool  green  gardens.  In  "  The 
Cherokee's  Threat  "  he  has  recorded  his  first 
eager  impressions  of  the  new  community  that 
he  was  entering,  as  he  stood  and  looked  about 
him  in  the  side  aisle  of  the  old  chapel  on  the 
opening  day  of  the  term  :  "It  was  the  only 
republic  I  have  ever  known,  —  that  class  of 
freshmen.  It  was  a  fair  arena.  ...  Of  the 
feelings  that  stir  the  heart  in  our  youth,  —  of 
the  few,  the  very  few,  that  have  no  recoil  and 
leave  no  repentance,  —  this  leaping  from  the 
starting  post  of  mind,  this  first  spread  of  the 
encouraged  wing  in  the  free  heaven  of  thought 
and  knowledge,  is  recorded  in  my  own  slender 
experience  as  the  most  joyous  and  the  most  un- 
mingled." 

This  was  in  the  retrospect.  He  did  not  em 
ploy  such  fine  language  in  1823.  His  first  let 
ters  from  college  are  like  those  of  any  other 
freshman,  simple  in  style,  filled  with  affectionate 
messages  to  the  folks  at  home,  thanks  for  bun- 


40  NATHANIEL  PARKER    WILLIS. 

dies,  etc.,  received,  requests  to  mother  touching 
shirts  and  suspenders,  and  details  of  his  daily 
routine.  They  describe  the  prayers  at  early 
candlelight  and  the  meals  in  Commons  Hall, 
with  its  twenty  long  tables,  its  big  dumb-waiter, 
and  its  too  abstemious  tutor,  who,  from  the  van- 
tage-ground  of  a  raised  platform,  returns  thanks 
when  the  dinner  is  only  half  done.  "  You  may 
sit  down  afterwards  if  you  wish,  but  it  is  not 
generally  the  case.  There  is  an  old  woman  who 
has  been  in  the  college  kitchen  twenty  years, 
and  in  all  this  time  done  nothing  but  make  pies. 
We  have  them  Sundays,  Wednesdays,  and  Fri 
days;  the  worst  of  it  is  we  can  only  get  one 
piece.  I  have  fared  rather  better  than  the  rest 
generally,  for  Durant  seldom  eats  pie,  and  most 
always  sends  me  his  piece."  Then  there  was  the 
round  of  study  and  recitation  :  Livy  in  the  morn 
ing,  mathematics  at  eleven,  and  Roman  antiqui 
ties  at  four.  "  At  recitation  I  have  one  of  the 
descendants  of  the  Dutch  settlers  in  New  York 
on  each  side  of  me.  Their  ancestors  are  men 
tioned  by  Knickerbocker  in  his  history  of  New 
York."  These  were  doubtless  Cortlandt  Van 
Rensselaer  of  Albany,  and  Washington  Van 
Zandt  from  Long  Island.  Between  study  hours 
there  is  foot-ball  on  the  green  in  front  of  the 
colleges,  "  which  game  is  not  generally  very  ed 
ifying  to  the  shins  of  the  freshmen."  These  last 


COLLEGE  LIFE.  41 

have  subscribed  twenty -five  cents  apiece -"to 
support  the  lamps  in  the  entry,"  —  a  venerable 
trick  of  the  sophomores,  who  "  collected  in  this 
way  five  or  six  dollars,  and  had  a  scrape  upon 
it,  and  the  conclusion  of  the  matter  was  their 
getting  so  intoxicated  as  to  be  unable  to  reach 
home."  The  freshmen  have  likewise  had  their 
windows  broken,  and  Willis's  chum  has  been 
smoked  out,  during  the  former's  absence  from 
his  room,  by  cigars  inserted  in  the  keyhole.  A 
somewhat  distant  and  impersonal  form  of  the 
persecution  this  will  seem  to  modern  freshmen. 
But  Sophomore  Kneeland,  from  Georgia,  having 
been  collared  by  Tutor  Stoddard,  red-handed, 
in  the  act  of  breaking  windows,  and  having 
knocked  down  the  tutor  and  run,  has  been  pub 
licly  expelled,  the  president  reading  out  his  mit 
timus  in  chapel  to  the  whole  college.  Willis 
has  joined  the  Linonian  Society,  —  "  Calhoun,  the 
candidate  for  the  presidency,  was  once  a  mem 
ber  of  it "  (an  ancient  "  campaign  "  argument)  ; 
also  a  freshman  debating  club,  the  officers  of 
which  "are  almost  all  professors  of  religion," 
and  in  which  he  has  been  chosen,  in  his  ab 
sence,  "  critic  on  composition  and  speaking." 
He  has  drunk  tea  at  Miss  Dunning's.  He  has 
called  upon  Mrs.  Daggett  and  Mrs.  T.  Dwight, 
finding  the  former  of  these  two  ladies  to  be  "  a 
very  pious  woman,  and  a  woman  of  uncommon 


42  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

understanding,"  and  the  latter  "a  woman  of 
noble  mind,  though  plain  in  person."  He  has 
taken  a  walk  to  the  Cave  of  the  Regicides  on 
West  Rock,  —  time  out  of  mind  the  goal  of  the 
freshman's  first  pilgrimage.  He  has  been  ap 
pointed  one  of  the  committee  to  solicit  subscrip 
tions  in  his  own  class  for  the  Greeks,  and  is 
also  one  of  the  managers  of  the  Bible  Society, 
and  active  at  the  Friday  evening  prayer-meet 
ings,  there  being  just  at  present  considerable 
"  engagedness  "  among  "  professors  "  in  the  sev 
eral  classes.  Meanwhile  Tutor  Twining  has  been 
hissed  and  scraped  at  while  conducting  services 
in  chapel.  The  government  '*  are  growing  more 
and  more  rigorous.  Almost  every  member  of 
the  freshman  class  is  called  up  and  questioned. 
Many  are  dismissed,  and  an  examination  is  made 
of  everything,  from  the  stealing  of  a  sugar-bowl 
out  of  the  hall  to  the  prostration  of  a  tutor. 
Tutor  Woolsey  was  smoked  the  other  evening 
by  two  fellows  who  were  too  drunk  to  make 
their  escape,  and  were  caught  without  any  diffi 
culty.  They  did  it  at  twelve  o'clock  at  night, 
wrapped  in  sheets,  and  are  both  dismissed."  The 
disturbances  between  the  sophomores  and  fresh 
men  culminated  for  Willis  in  a  short  suspension 
in  the  winter  of  1823-24  for  honorably  refusing 
to  disclose  the  names  of  sophomores  by  whom 
he  had  been  smoked  and  squirted,  or  the  names 


COLLEGE  LIFE.  43 

of  persons  in  whose  rooms  he  had  seen  a  squirt, 
—  an  instrument  of  torture  whose  possession 
involved  expulsion.  The  letter  in  which  he  an 
nounced  his  suspension  is  very  long  and  filled 
with  heroic  sentiments. 

"  All  my  friends  have  been  to  see  me,  and  justify 
me  in  my  conduct.  There  are  two  professors  of  re 
ligion  in  the  sophomore  class  who  have  done  exactly 
so,  and  will  be  treated  accordingly.  And  though  it 
is  a  matter  of  policy  with  the  government  to  pursue 
this  course,  it  is  said,  and  justly,  that  they  despise  an 
informer.  My  meeting  with  this  squirt  was  entirely 
unavoidable,  not  originating  (as  perhaps  you  may 
suppose)  from  being  in  company  where  I  ought  not 
to  be." 

Willis  suffered  frequently  from  homesickness 
and  low  spirits  during  the  winter  of  his  fresh 
man  year.  He  had  the  poetic  temperament,  and 
was  subject  to  his  moods,  easily  elated  and  easily 
depressed.  His  chum  was  away  somewhere  teach 
ing,  and  Willis,  in  his  loneliness,  had  recourse 
to  his  pen. 

"  I  find  but  few  among  the  students,"  he  wrote  to 
his  father,  "whom  I  should  choose  as  companions. 
Most  of  them  are  profane  and  dissipated,  and  their 
highest  ambition  seems  to  be  to  show  off  as  a  high 
fellow,  and  one  who  can  overreach  the  government 
and  laugh  at  its  officers.  The  pious  students  in  my 
class  are  mostly  men,  without  any  refinement  either 


44  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

of  manners  or  feeling,  —  fresh  from  the  country,  — 
whose  piety  renders  them  respectable,  and  who  with 
out  it  would  be  but  boors.  But  there  are  a  few  stu 
dents  who  have  both  piety  and  refinement,  and  some 
who,  though  not  professors  of  religion,  respect  it,  and 
who  are  moral  in  their  outward  conduct,  whatever  be 
the  state  of  their  hearts.  These  I  can  generally  as 
sociate  with,  but  when  they  are  all  out  of  the  way, 
and  I  am  in  need  of  something  to  brighten  my  feel 
ings,  I  can  find  in  the  flow  of  fancy  a  forgetfulness 
of  the  darker  side.  I  have  written  a  great  deal  in 
this  way  since  my  college  life  commenced,  and  my 
writing  will  always  depend  on  the  thermometer  of 
my  feelings." 

As  the  youthful  scribe  gained  readier  power 
of  expression  his  home  correspondence  became 
fuller  and  more  effusive.  He  wrote  with  much 
minuteness  a  narrative  of  an  evening  spent  at  a 
country  parsonage  in  West  Haven,  of  a  walk  to 
the  light-house,  a  visit  to  the  cave  of  the  her 
mit  of  East  Rock,  and  of  a  trip  by  steamboat  to 
New  York.  He  dwelt  at  length  upon  all  the 
impressions  which  the  varying  seasons  and  his 
daily  experiences  made  upon  his  mind.  There 
is,  of  course,  no  literary  art  in  most  of  these 
juvenile  confidences.  The  language  is  apt  to  be 
sophomorical,  and  the  letters,  as  a  whole,  will 
seldom  repay  quotation,  but  an  extract  may  be 
given  here  and  there  as  a  specimen  of  his  epis 
tolary  style.  The  following  is  from  a  letter  of 


COLLEGE  LIFE.  45 

July  11,  1824,  to  his  sister  Julia,  with  whom 
he  was  always  particularly  unreserved :  — 

"I  wish  you  were  here  to  walk  with  me  these 
beautiful  moonlight  evenings.  I  have  seldom  gone 
to  bed  and  left  the  mild  Queen  of  the  Night  riding 
in  the  heavens,  for  it  seems  a  waste  of  noble  feelings. 
When  I  am  walking  on  such  evenings  as  we  have 
had  this  week  past,  and  amidst  such  scenery  as  New 
Haven  presents,  chastened  and  softened  in  its  beauty 
by  the  pure  and  quiet  light  of  the  moon,  I  have  an 
elevation  of  thought  and  sentiment  which  I  cannot 
drown  in  sleep  without  reluctance.  I  really  think  we 
had  better  lay  it  down  as  a  rule  never  to  go  to  sleep 
while  the  moon  is  shining.  In  fact,  Julia,  I  suspect 
(for  I  find  no  one  who  sympathizes  with  me  in  this 
feeling)  that  I  am  something  of  a  lunatic,  —  affected 
by  the  rays  of  that  beautiful  planet  with  a  kind  of 
happiness  which  is  the  result  of  a  heated  imagination, 
and  which  is  not  felt  by  the  generality  of  the  common- 
sense  people  of  the  world.  Last  Friday  evening,  you 
know,  was  beautiful.  I  attended  a  meeting  of  the 
professors  of  religion,  statedly  held  on  that  evening 
in  the  theological  chamber,  and  when  it  was  out 
went  alone  to  walk.  I  strolled  along  upon  the  shore 
of  the  bay  towards  the  light-house  a  mile  or  more, 
and  never  did  I  meet  with  so  delightful  a  scene. 
There  was  no  wind  stirring,  or  not  enough  to  make  a 
ripple  on  the  wave,  and  the  hardly  perceptible  swell 
of  the  tide  cast  its  waters  upon  the  pebbles  without  a 
sound.  You  know  the  appearance  of  a  bay  when  the 
light  is  shed  obliquely  upon  it  —  looking  like  one  im- 


46  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

mense  sheet  of  liquid  silver,  and  if  you  have  ever 
seen  a  boat  pass  across  it  at  such  a  moment,  and  seen 
that  beautiful  phenomena  of  the  phosphorus  dripping 
like  fire  from  the  oars  and  gilding  the  foam  before 
the  prow,  you  can  have  some  idea  of  the  scene  I  then 
witnessed.  Now  and  then  a  sloop  stole  languidly 
across  the  bay,  hardly  appearing  to  move,  and  pre 
senting  an  alternate  light  and  shade  as  the  moon 
struck  upon  the  flapping  sail  or  the  helmsman  tacked 
to  take  advantage  of  the  hardly  perceptible  breeze 
which  swept  him  slowly  from  the  land.  I  declare  it 
did  seem  like  enchantment.  The  clock  struck  one, 
but  I  felt  no  disposition  to  go  home,  and,  as  the  air 
was  pure  and  balmy,  the  thought  struck  me  that  it 
would  be  a  pleasant  hour  to  bathe.  Accordingly  I 
undressed,  and  swam  along  the  shore  slowly  for  about 
half  a  mile  in  the  cool,  refreshing  waters,  with  sensa 
tions  which  must  be  felt  to  be  understood.  After  this 
delightful  exercise  I  walked  home,  and,  seating  my 
self  by  the  window  where  I  could  look  at  the  moon, 
fell  asleep,  and  did  not  wake  till  near  morning." 

This  fancy,  that  he  was  peculiarly  affected  by 
the  light  of  the  moon,  was  the  first  suggestion 
of  his  wild  tale,  "  The  Lunatic's  Skate,"  one  of 
his  most  imaginative  stories,  and  not  unworthy 
of  comparison  with  the  weird  fictions  of  Edgar 
Poe. 

In  the  summer  term  of  his  sophomore  year 
Willis  was  again  suspended  for  a  few  weeks, 
this  time  in  common  with  a  majority  of  his 


COLLEGE  LIFE.  47 

class  and  in  consequence  of  what  was  known 
as  "the  Conic  Sections  Rebellion."  The  class 
had  been  assured  by  the  tutors  that  they  would 
not  have  to  learn  the  corollaries  to  the  propo 
sitions  in  that  branch  of  mathematics,  and 
when  the  objectionable  corollaries  were,  notwith 
standing,  imposed  upon  them,  the  mercury 
then  standing  at  90°  and  the  annual  exami 
nations  at  hand,  eighty-four  members  bound 
themselves  by  a  solemn  pledge  not  to  recite 
them.  The  government  were  firm,  and  the 
recalcitrant  sophomores  were  suspended  in  pla 
toons,  day  after  day.  Horace  Bushnell  was  a 
ring-leader  in  this  revolt,  which  included  the 
"  professors  "  equally  with  the  worldly.  All  the 
suspended  men  were  taken  back  at  the  end  of 
the  term. 

In  some  recollections  of  Willis  by  his  class 
mate,  Hugh  Blair  Grigsby,  published  in  the 
latter's  journal,  the  "Norfolk  Beacon,"  in  the 
autumn  of  1834,  he  says :  — 

"The  first  notice  that  the  public  had  of  his  bud 
ding  genius  was  a  little  poem  in  six  verses,  the  two 
first  lines  of  the  first  verse  being,  — 

*  The  leaf  floats  by  upon  the  stream 
Unheeded  in  its  silent  way.' 

We  cannot  recall  the  whole  stanza ;  but  our  fair  read 
ers  may  remember  that  their  albums  contained,  some 
time  since,  a  beautiful  vignette  representing  a  lady 


48  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

resting  in  her  bower,  listening  to  the  notes  of  a 
pretty  songster  perched  above  her.  This  engraving 
was  taken  from  these  lines  in  this  poem  :  — 

'  The  bird  that  sings  in  lady's  bower, 

To-morrow  will  she  think  of  him  ? '  " 

Grigsby  says  that  this  poem  took  the  prize  of 
fered  by  the  "  New  York  Mirror."  He  also  re 
calls  a  division-room  composition,  of  a  humor 
ous  character,  read  by  Willis  in  the  winter  of 
1824-25,  about  an  old  man  planting  a  cabbage 
on  his  wife's  grave,  which  produced  great  mer 
riment  in  the  class.  In  the  same  year  verses 
signed  "  Roy,"  mainly  on  scriptural  subjects, 
began  to  appear  in  the  poet's  corner  of  the 
"  Boston  Recorder,"  where  they  jostled  the  se 
lections  from  Watts  or  original  contributions 
from  the  pens  of  "  Maro,"  "  Eliza,"  and  "  The 
Green  Mountain  Bard."  Some  of  these  juve 
nilia  were  too  imperfect  to  merit  preserving, 
and  were  never  put  between  covers.  Others, 
like  "Absalom,"  "The  Sacrifice  of  Abraham," 
and  "  The  Burial  of  Arnold,"  were  among  his 
most  successful  things.  They  were  widely  quot 
ed  and  admired,  copied  about  in  the  news 
papers,  inserted  in  readers  and  collections  of 
verse,  and  have  done  as  much  to  upbear  his 
memory  as  any  of  his  later  writings.  They 
were  not  all  contributed  to  the  "  Recorder." 
Some  came  out  in  "  The  Christian  Examiner," 


COLLEGE  LIFE.  49 

"  The  Memorial,"  "  The  Connecticut  Journal," 
"The  Youth's  Companion,"  and  "The  Tele 
graph."  It  was  customary  for  the  editors  of 
weekly  and  monthly  periodicals,  who  ordinarily 
paid  their  contributors  nothing,  to  stimulate 
Columbia's  infant  muse  by  an  annual  burst  of 
generosity  in  the  shape  of  a  prize  for  the  best 
poem  printed  in  their  columns  during  the  year, 
—  a  device  now  relegated  to  the  juvenile  and 
college  press.  Several  of  these  honors  fell  to 
Willis's  share.  Lockwood,  the  publisher  of  an 
annual  gift-book,  "  The  Album,"  paid  him  fifty 
dollars  for  a  prize  poem,  and  he  got  unknown 
sums  for  his  "Absalom,"  "prize  poem  desig 
nated  by  the  judges  of  original  poetry  in  the 
4  Christian  Watchman,' "  as  announced  in  the 
issue  of  that  paper  for  March  30,  1827 ;  and 
for  "  The  Sacrifice  of  Abraham,"  similarly  des 
ignated  by  the  judges  in  the  "  Boston  Re 
corder  "  for  1826.  He  was  also  invited  to  write 
for  the  "  Atlantic  Souvenir,"  published  in  Phil 
adelphia,  Goodrich's  "  Token,"  and  Hill's  "  Ly 
ceum  "  in  Boston,  Bryant's  new  magazine  in 
New  York,  and  a  paper  recently  started  in  the 
same  city  and  edited  by  a  brother  of  Professor 
Silliman ;  for  the  "  Bristol  Reporter,"  a  "  news 
paper  in  Rhode  Island,"  and  other  publications. 
All  this  literary  glory  gave  the  young  under 
graduate  great  eclat  in  New  Haven.  He  re- 

4 


50  NATHANIEL   PARKER   WJLLIS. 

ceived  many  invitations  out,  and  was  teased  for 
verses  by  the  owners  of  countless  albums.  He 
began  to  frequent  the  society  of  the  town,  where 
his  rapidly  developing  social  gifts  soon  made 
him  a  favorite.  He  was  at  this  time  a  tall, 
handsome  stripling,  with  an  easy  assurance  of 
manner  and  a  good  deal  of  the  dandy  in  his 
dress.  His  portrait,  painted  by  Miss  Stuart  of 
Boston,  a  daughter  of  the  famous  portrait-paint 
er,  Gilbert  Stuart,  shows  him  with  a  rosy  face, 
very  fair  hair  hanging  in  natural  curls  over  the 
forehead,  a  retrousse  nose,  long  upper  lip,  pale 
gray  eye  with  uncommonly  full  lid  (a  family 
trait),  and  a  confident  and  joyous  expression. 
He  carried  himself  with  an  airy,  jaunty  grace, 
and  there  was  something  particularly  spirited 
and  vif  about  the  poise  and  movement  of  his 
head,  —  a  something  which  no  portrait  could 
reproduce.  With  naturally  elegant  tastes,  an 
expansive  temper,  and  an  eagerness  to  see  the 
more  brilliant  side  of  life,  Willis  could  at  all 
times  make  himself  agreeable  to  those  whom  he 
cared  to  please.  But  he  was  quick  to  feel  the 
chill  of  a  hostile  presence,  and  toward  any  one, 
in  especial,  who  seemed  to  disapprove  of  him  he 
could  be  curt  and  defiant.  He  had  a  winning 
way  with  women,  who  were  flattered  by  his  rec 
ognition  of  their  influence  over  him  and  grate 
ful  for  les  petits  soins  which  he  never  neglected. 


COLLEGE  LIFE.  51 

Taken  up  more  and  more  with  social  distrac 
tions,  he  ceased  to  apply  himself  to  his  college 
duties.  Indeed,  he  had  never  felt  much  inter 
est  in  the  studies  of  the  curriculum,  excepting 
Latin,  for  which  he  had  a  taste  and  in  which 
his  scholarship  was  fairly  good.  Mathematics 
was  his  pet  aversion.  He  did  considerable  mis 
cellaneous  reading,  and  cultivated  a  liking  for 
the  old  British  dramatists  and  Commonwealth 
prose  writers,  like  Burton,  Taylor,  and  Browne ; 
his  studies  in  whom  he  afterwards  imparted  to 
the  readers  of  the  "  American  Monthly."  He 
wrote  to  his  father,  shortly  before  graduation, 
that  he  had  devoted  his  whole  time  in  college 
to  literature. 

Always  more  of  a  ladies'  man  than  a  man's 
man,  fastidious  too  in  the  choice  of  acquaint 
ances,  he  took  small  part  in  college  affairs,  and 
preferred  the  social  life  of  the  town.  He  was 
not  a  frequenter  of  Linonia,  that  forum  whose 
decay  furnishes  an  annual  theme  for  lamenta 
tion  to  returning  graduates  at  Commencement. 
But  once  he  debated  that  perennial  question, 
"  Were  the  Crusades  a  Benefit  to  Europe  ? " 
and  once  he  composed  a  comedy,  which  was 
acted  in  the  society  with  applause,  though  not 
without  scandal.  The  following  reminiscences 
will  find  an  echo  in  the  breast  of  many  an 
alumnus  who  in  his  salad  days  has  sparkled  out 


52  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

in  some  "  Coffee   Club  "  or  "  Studio,"  or  other 
Ambrosial  experiment  of  the  kind  :  — 

"  I  sunk  some  pocket  money  in  a  blank  book 
on  reading  Wilson's  *  Noctes.'  Celestial  nights  I 
thought  we  had  of  it,  at  old  black  Stanley's  forbid 
den  oyster  house  in  New  Haven  ;  and  it  struck  me 
it  was  robbery  of  posterity  (no  less  !)  not  to  record 
the  brilliant  efflorescence  of  our  conviviality.  Reg 
ularly  on  reaching  my  chambers  (or  as  soon  after 
morning  prayers  as  my  head  became  pellucid),  I  at 
tempted  to  reduce  to  dialogue  the  wit  of  our  Chris 
topher  North,  '  Shepherd  '  and  '  Tickler ; '  but  alas  ! 
it  became  what  may  be  called  '  productive  labor.' 
Either  my  memory  did  not  serve  me,  or  wit  (I 
should  n't  be  surprised)  reads  cold  by  repentant  day 
light.  It  was  heavy  work,  as  reluctant  as  a  college 
exercise,  and  after  using  up  for  cigar-lighters  the 
short-lived  '  Noctes,'  I  devoted  the  remainder  of  the 
book  to  outlines  of  the  antique  (that  is  to  say,  of  old 
shoes),  my  passion  just  then  being  a  collection  of 
French  slippers  from  the  prettiest  feet  in  the  known 
world  ('  known,'  to  me)." 

Among  the  uncollected  "  Recorder  "  verses  is 
a  series  of  three  divertingly  Byronic  perform 
ances,  "  Misanthropic  Hours,"  from  which  it 
would  seem  that  the  poet,  in  his  junior  year, 
had  a  momentary  attack  of  cynicism,  produced 
by  his  discovery  of  the  soullessness  of  "  woman." 
Most  boys  who  tag  lines  have  gone  through  this 
species  of  measles. 


COLLEGE  LIFE.  58 

"  I  do  not  hate,  but  I  have  felt 

Indifferent  to  woman  long  : 
I  bow  not  where  I  once  have  knelt, 

I  lisp  not  what  I  poured  in  song. 
They  are  too  beautifully  made 

For  their  tame  earthliness  of  thought ; 
Ay,  their  immortal  minds  degrade 

The  meaner  work  His  hands  have  wrought." 

The  specifications  of  this  painful  charge  were 
several.  He  had  been  walking  with  a  beautiful 
girl  one  glorious  night,  with  his  soul  uplifted  by 
the  influences  of  the  hour,  when  she  rudely 
jarred  upon  his  mood  by  remarking  that  "  their 
kitchen  chimney  smoked  again."  Another 
young  woman,  with  whom  he  was  viewing  a 
Crucifixion  in  a  picture  gallery,  had  "coldly 
curled  her  lip  and  praised  the  high  priest's  gar 
ment."  A  third  had  profaned  one  of  his  relig 
ious  hours. 

"  I  turned  me  at  the  slow  Amen 

And  wiped  my  drowning  eyes,  and  met 
A  trifling  smile !     Think  ye  of  men  1 

I  tell  you  man  hath  heart :  —  no,  no, 
It  was  a  woman's  smile.    They  tell 

Of  her  bright  ruby  lip,  and  eye 
That  shames  the  Arabic  gazelle  ; 

They  tell  of  her  cheek's  glowing  dye, 
Of  her  arch  look  and  witching  spell : 

But  there  is  not  that  man  on  earth 
Who  at  that  hour  had  felt  like  mirth." 

Worse  than  all,  he  had  been  watching  by  a 
corpse,  in  company  with  a  young  lady  of  his  ac 
quaintance,  when 


54  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

"  She  trifled,  ay,  that  angel  maid, 
She  trifled  where  the  dead  was  laid  !  " 

These  misogynistic  musings  called  forth  a  re 
monstrance,  —  "  Woman  —  to  Roy,"  —  by  one 
of  the  "  Recorder's  "  poetesses,  who  signed  her 
self  "  Rob."  "  Ye  know  her  not,"  she  sang, 

"  An  idle  name 

Ye  give  to  toys  of  fashion's  mould, 
And  well  ye  scorn  those  guilty  ones 

Who  curl  their  smiles  of  pride  to  heaven. 
Oh,  seek  her  not  in  halls  of  mirth, 
But  in  those  calm  dwellings  of  earth,"  etc. 

Meanwhile,  rumors  of  his  idleness  and  dissi 
pation  began  to  reach  Boston,  and  caused  his 
family  much  distress.  These  reports  were  ab 
surdly  exaggerated,  and  were  warmly  denied  by 
his  friends,  who  asserted  that  the  head  and  front 
of  his  offending  were  an  occasional  moonlight 
drive  to  "the  Lake "  and  a  supper,  with  a  glass 
of  ale  at  "  Barney's."  Willis  was  gay  in  college, 
but  very  far  from  dissipated.  In  the  select  cir 
cles  where  he  was  made  at  home  nothing  like 
dissipation  was  tolerated.  The  society  of  the 
little  university  town  was  as  simple  as  it  was  re 
fined.  He  was  cordially  welcomed  in  such  fam 
ilies  as  the  Whitings,  the  Bishops,  the  Hubbards, 
and  the  entire  Woolsey,  Devereux,  and  Johnson 
connection  in  New  Haven,  Stratford,  and  New 
York.  His  winter  holidays  were  spent  partly 
at  New  York  with  his  classmates  Rankin  and 


COLLEGE  LIFE.  55 

Richards,  partly  at  Stratford  with  the  Johnsons, 
once  at  New  London  among  the  kinsfolk  of  his 
grandmother,  Lucy  Douglas ;  and  once  he  trav 
eled  as  far  as  Philadelphia.  His  "  dissipations  " 
in  New  Haven  were  picnics  to  East  Rock,  re 
hearsals  of  "  The  Lady  of  the  Lake  "  at  a  semi 
nary  for  young  ladies,  pie-banquets  in  Thanks 
giving  week,  —  paid  for  with  verses,  —  and  New 
Year's  calls  with  their  accompaniments  of  a 
cooky  and  a  glass  of  wine. 

That  his  head  was  a  little  turned  by  his  liter 
ary  and  social  successes  is  not  wonderful.  He 
had  his  share  of  vanity,  and  in  his  confidential 
letters  to  his  parents  and  sisters  he  made  no  ef 
fort  to  conceal  his  elation.  A  passage  from  one 
of  these,  dated  January  7,  1827,  will  give  a  good 
idea  of  his  occupations  and  his  frame  of  mind 
at  this  point  in  his  senior  year  :  — 

"  I  stayed  in  Stratford  till  Friday,  and  then  the  John 
sons  offered  me  a  seat  in  the  carriage  to  New  York. 
This,  of  course,  was  irresistible ;  and  Friday  night  at 
ten  o'clock  I  was  presented  to  the  mayor  of  the  city, 
at  a  splendid  levee.  It  was  his  last  before  leaving 
his  office,  and  I  never  saw  such  magnificence.  The 
fashion  and  beauty  and  talent  of  the  city  were  all 
there,  crowding  his  immense  rooms  to  show  their  re 
spect  for  his  services.  ...  I  found  many  old  ac 
quaintances  there  and  made  some  new  ones,  —  among 
the  latter,  a  Mrs.  Brunson,  as  beautiful  a  woman  as  I 


56  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

ever  saw,  and  her  sister,  Miss  Catherine  Bailey,  also 
a  most  beautiful  woman.  I  met  the  very  accom 
plished  Adelaide  Richards  there,  who  patronized  me 
and  played  my  dictionary,  and  from  whose  father 
and  mother  I  received  an  invitation  to  dine  on  New 
Year's  day.  At  two  or  three  o'clock  I  went  home  to 
Mr.  William  Johnson's  (who  married  Miss  Woolsey's 
sister),  and  in  a  glorious  bed,  with  a  good  coal  fire  by 
my  side,  slept  off  the  fatigues  of  a  sixty  miles'  ride 
and  four  hours'  dissipation. 

"  On  Saturday  evening  I  went  to  a  genuine  soiree  at 
the  great  Dr.  Hosack's.  This  man  is  the  most  luxu 
rious  liver  in  the  city,  and  his  house  is  a  perfect  pal 
ace.  You  could  not  lay  your  hand  on  the  wall  for 
costly  paintings,  and  the  furniture  exceeds  everything 
I  have  seen.  I  met  all  the  literary  characters  of  the 
day  there,  and  Halleck,  the  poet,  among  them.  With 
him  I  became  quite  acquainted,  and  he  is  a  most  glo 
rious  fellow.  More  of  him  when  we  meet.  .  .  .  You 
know  on  New  Year's  day  in  New  York  all  the  gentle 
men  call  on  all  their  acquaintances.  I  began  at 
twelve  o'clock  at  the  Battery,  and  went  up  to  St. 
John's  Park,  merely  running  in  and  right  out  again 
till  four,  the  dinner  hour.  I  called  on  everybody. 
William  Woolsey  went  with  me,  and,  by  appointing 
a  rendezvous  in  every  street,  we  kept  along  together. 
At  four  I  went  to  Mr.  George  Richards's  to  dine. 
He  is  no  relative  of  Robert's,  and  lives  in  the  best 
style  in  a  large  house  on  St.  John's  Park.  We  sat 
down  to  dinner  between  five  and  six,  and  sat  several 
hours  with  a  very  large  party.  I  got  a  seat  next 


COLLEGE  LIFE.  57 

to  the  beautiful  Miss  Adelaide,  and  enjoyed  it  much. 
They  live  in  the  French  style,  and  the  last  course 
was  sugar-plums !  " 

In  another  letter  he  says :  — 

"  I  was  much  flattered  in  vacation  by  the  attention * 
of  literary  men  and  women  ;  the  latter  more  par' 
ularly,  who  seemed  to  consider  it  quite  the  thing 
find  a  poet  who  was  not  a  bear,  and  who  could  stoop 
so  much  from  the  excelsa  of  his  profession  as  to  dress 
fashionably  and  pay  compliments  like  a  lawyer.     I 
heard  of  a  very  blue  young  lady  who  said,  '  La,  how 
I  should  love  to  see  Mr.  Willis  !     I  am  sure  I  should 
fall  in  love  with  a  man  who  writes  such  sweet  poetry.' 
She  is  both  belle  and  bluestocking,  they  say." 

One  of  the  families  in  which  Willis  was  an 
habitue  was  the  household  of  Mrs.  Ap thorp,  a 
widow  with  four  lovely  daughters,  who  conducted 
one  of  the  seminaries  for  young  ladies  for  which 
New  Haven  was  famous.  This  was  the  original 
of  Mrs.  Ilfrington's  school  in  "  The  Cherokee's 
Threat."  Willis  was  much  ridiculed  by  the  re 
viewers  for  his  very  high-colored  description  of 
this  educational  establishment,  and  in  particular 
for  declaring  that  "  in  the  united  pictures  of 
Paul  Veronese  and  Raphael  "  he  had  "  scarcely 
found  so  many  lovely  women,  of  so  different 
models  and  so  perfect,  as  were  assembled  in  my 
sophomore  year,"  in  this  Connecticut  "  sugar-re 
finery."  His  lines  "  On  the  Death  of  a  Young 


58  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

Girl  "  were  written  on  the  occasion  of  the  death 
of  one  of  this  family,  some  years  after.  The 

"  Lines  to  Laura  W -,  Two  Years  of  Age  "  — 

one  of  two  selections  from  Willis  in  Emerson's 
"  Parnassus  "  —  were  addressed  to  a  little  New 
Haven  girl,  the  sister  and  biographer  of  Theo 
dore  Winthrop.  Another  friend  of  Willis's  was 
a  Mrs.  De  Forest,  widow  of  the  American  con 
sul  at  Buenos  Ayres,  a  lady  of  fortune,  who  came 
to  New  Haven,  and  bought  a  house  facing  the 
green,  where  she  gave  fashionable  parties.  She 
was  herself  a  beautiful  woman,  and  her  daugh 
ters,  Julia  and  Pastora  —  matre  pulchra  filice 
pulchr lores  —  were  great  belles  among  the  stu 
dents  in  Chevalier  Wikoff's  day,  who  describes 
one  of  them  as  a  "  perfect  blonde,"  and  the  other 
as  a  "  matchless  brunette." 

The  religious  impressions  which  had  been 
stamped  upon  Willis's  mind  by  the  Andover  re 
vival  were  gradually  obliterated  by  the  preoccu 
pations  of  undergraduate  life.  He  did  not  defi 
nitely  renounce  his  profession,  and  remained  till 
graduation  in  communion  with  the  college  church. 
But  the  state  of  his  soul  gave  deep  anxiety  to  his 
good  parents,  who  looked  upon  him,  as  he  did 
upon  himself,  as  a  backslider.  In  a  letter  to  his 
father  during  a  season  of  "  ingathering  "  in  the 
college,  stimulated  by  the  eloquent  preaching  of 
Professor  Fitch,  he  wrote  as  follows :  — 


COLLEGE  LIFE.  59 

"  My  own  experience  makes  me  very  much  alive 
to  the  frequent  fallacy  of  the  hopes  which  are  experi 
enced  in  revivals.  I  understand  your  anxiety  for  me, 
and  I  understand  the  feelings  which  prompted  moth 
er's  most  tender  and  affectionate  addition  to  your 
letter.  If  I  perish  it  will  not  be  because  I  do  not 
know  my  duty,  for  there  are  few  who  have  been  bet 
ter  instructed.  But  my  feelings  are  most  peculiar 
and  most  trying.  I  am  under  one  ceaseless  and  en 
during  conviction  of  sin  ;  one  wearing  anxiety  about 
my  soul,  without  making  any  visible  progress.  I 
know  what  you  will  write  about  it.  I  could  antici 
pate  every  word  you  can  say  upon  the  point.  But  so 
it  is,  and  I  have  done  with  all  discussion  of  it." 

At  the  completion  of  the  senior  examinations 
Willis  delivered  the  valedictory  poem  to  his 
class,  "  with  a  simplicity  and  feeling  which 
thrilled  the  audience,"  says  one  who  was  present. 
Portions  of  this  were  printed  in  his  "  Sketches  " 
and  in  subsequent  editions  of  his  poems.  It  is 
one  of  the  hardest  things  in  the  world  to  write 
a  good  occasional  poem,  and  Willis's  Class  Day 
address  does  not  differ  much  from  other  perform 
ances  of  the  kind.  It  is  in  blank  verse,  labori 
ously  didactic,  and  expresses  the  usual  conven 
tional  sentiments  and  noble  moral  reflections 
proper  to  the  occasion.  It  is  by  no  means  as 
good  as  another  occasional  poem  of  his,  "  The 
Death  of  Arnold,"  written  upon  the  burial  of  the 


60  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

class  champion,  and  first  printed  in  the  "  Con 
necticut  Journal." 

Willis  spent  the  senior  vacation  —  a  halcyon 
period  of  six  weeks  that  formerly  intervened 
between  Class  Day  and  Commencement  —  in  a 
trip  through  New  York  State  and  Canada ;  tak 
ing  what  is  now  known  as  the  grand  tour,  and 
gathering  impressions  which  he  ultimately 
worked  into  the  texture  of  his  vivid  sketches 
of  "  Niagara,  Lake  Ontario,  and  the  St.  Law 
rence."  He  traveled  by  the  Erie  Canal,  then 
newly  opened  through  an  almost  unbroken  wil 
derness,  dotted  here  and  there  with  stripling 
cities,  Utica,  Palmyra,  Rochester,  —  the  last 
only  a  few  years  old. 

"  The  burnt  stumps  of  the  first  settlers  are  all  over 
the  town  :  you  find  them  close  by  the  doors  and  in 
the  yards  of  the  people,  and  you  may  look  between 
elegant  blocks  of  stone  and  brick  buildings  and  see  the 
natural  forest  within  five  minutes'  walk.  It  is  com 
plete  mushroom.  We  saw  Colonel  Rochester,  who 
first  settled  it.  He  and  his  wife  were  sitting  at  their 
front  door,  enjoying  the  evening  under  trees  which 
twelve  years  ago  were  the  depth  of  the  wilderness." 

There  was  a  perpetual  novelty  in  these  con 
trasts.  He  saw  the  country,  as  it  were,  in  the 
making.  The  canal-boat  went  only  four  miles 
an  hour,  and  the  voyager  could  get  out,  when  so 
minded,  to  stretch  his  legs  and  pick  the  wild 


COLLEGE  LIFE.  61 

flowers  along  the  tow-path.  Odd  experiences  re 
lieved  the  monotony  of  this  quiet  sail  along  the 
amber  Mohawk,  "bonniest  stream  that  ever 
dimpled."  One  Sunday,  at  the  request  of  old 
General  Wadsworth  of  Geneseo,  who  happened 
to  be  aboard  and  took  a  great  fancy  to  Willis, 
the  latter  preached  a  sermon  to  the  passengers 
assembled  in  the  cabin,  and  passed  among  them, 
in  consequence,  as  a  young  minister  who  "  had 
geten  him  yet  no  benefice."  And  here  is  a  little 
idyl  perhaps  worth  recording :  — 

"  On  Sunday  morning  I  saw  a  girl  on  a  hillside  in 
the  wildest  part  of  the  Mohawk  Valley,  milking.  So 
I  leaped  ashore,  to  the  great  amusement  of  the  pas 
sengers,  and  ran  up  to  give  her  a  lecture.  She  was 
quite  pretty,  and  blushed  when  I  asked  her  if  she 
knew  it  was  wicked  to  milk  on  Sunday.  She  had  a 
pretty  little  clean  foot,  probably  washed  by  the  wet 
grass,  and  held  up  the  milking-pail  for  me  to  drink 
with  considerable  grace.  I  should  have  begged  a 
kiss  if  the  boat  had  not  been  in  sight.  I  have  just 
been  called  up  to  look  at  Palmyra.  It  is  curious  to 
sail  through  the  centre  of  a  town,  and  see  people  in 
the  windows  above  you  and  on  the  steps  of  the 
houses,  crowding  to  see  the  strange  faces  on  board. 
They  look  so  much  at  home  and  you  come  so  near 
them  that  you  can  hardly  believe  you  shall  be  in  ten 
minutes -in  the  depth  of  the  forest  again." 

At  Utica  he  found  a  host  of  friends,  was  re- 


62  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

ceived  with  Western  hospitality,  and  had  twenty 
or  thirty  invitations  to  dinners  and  parties.  A 
Utica  belle  whom  he  had  known  in  New  Haven 
made  up  a  picnic  in  his  behoof  to  Trenton  Falls, 
the  scenery  of  which  he  described  so  admirably 
in  "  Edith  Linsey."  It  was  his  hap  to  visit 
Trenton  on  the  very  day  when  a  Miss  Suydam, 
a  young  lady  from  New  York,  fell  over  the  falls 
and  was  killed.  From  Auburn  he  drove  out  on 
a  visit  to  another  fair  acquaintance,  Miss  Adele 
Livingston,  whose  country  house  on  Skaneateles 
Lake  he  found  to  be  a  "  little  palace  of  cultiva 
tion  and  refinement"  dropped  down  unexpect 
edly  in  the  wilderness.  This  was  "Fleming 
Farm"  in  "Edith  Linsey,"  though  it  would 
probably  be  a  mistake  to  identify  the  heroine  of 
that  tale  with  Willis's  hostess.  With  her  he 
took  a  horseback  ride  round  the  head  of  the  lake, 
and  then  he  returned  to  his  canal.  At  Niagara 
he  encountered  a  pleasant  party  of  Boston  and 
Salem  people,  and  was  asked  to  attach  himself  to 
their  train  on  the  way  up  Ontario  and  down  the 
St.  Lawrence.  Among  them  was  a  "Miss  E. 

M "  (Emily  Marshall?),  a  famous  beauty, 

who  figures  in  Willis's  "  Niagara "  sketch  in  a 
romantic  and  perilous  adventure  behind  the  fall. 
"  I  am  sorry  I  may  not  mention  her  name,"  he 
says,  "  for  in  more  chivalrous  times  she  would 
have  been  a  character  of  history.  Everybody 


COLLEGE  LIFE.  63 

who  has  been  in  America,  however,  will  know 
whom  I  am  describing."  At  Montreal  he  fell 
in  with  Chester  Harding,  the  artist,  with  whom 
he  afterwards  became  intimate  at  Boston,  and 
who  painted  an  excellent  portrait  of  Willis,  now 
owned  by  Mr.  Charles  A.  Dana.  In  September 
he  went  back  to  New  Haven  to  take  his  degree 
and  say  good-by,  and  then  college  life  was  over 
and  the  world  before  him. 

Willis  always  looked  back  with  tenderness  to 
his  college  days.  Years  after,  in  his  "  Slingsby  " 
papers,  contributed  to  an  English  magazine,  he 
made  New  Haven  and  the  university  the  scene 
or  background  of  some  of  his  best  stories  and 
sketches  of  American  life,  such  as  "  Edith  Lin- 
sey,"  "  F.  Smith,"  "  Scenes  of  Fear,"  "  Larks 
in  Vacation,"  and  "  The  Cherokee's  Threat." 
These,  however,  are  not  college  stories  in  the  com 
mon  meaning  of  the  term.  The  heroes  of  these 
amusing  and  often  incredible  adventures  are  un 
dergraduates,  but  they  have  the  easy  savoirfaire 
of  men  of  the  world,  and  the  incidents  of  the 
narrative  are  mainly  enacted  outside  the  college 
fence,  and  consist  for  the  most  part  of  love-mak 
ing,  driving  stanhope,  and  touring  about  the 
country  in  an  independent  manner.  The  aca 
demic  life  of  the  time  offered  but  a  meagre  field 
to  the  romancer,  nor  indeed  is  the  case  much  al 
tered  since.  There  have  been  loud  calls,  at  pres- 


64  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

ent  subsiding,  for  an  "  American  Tom  Brown." 
A  few  patriotic  Harvard  graduates  have  re 
sponded,  but  their  success  has  been  such  that 
the  alumni  of  other  colleges  have  congratulated 
themselves  that  no  one  has  been  moved  to  per 
form  the  same  office  for  their  own  Almce  Ma- 
tres.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  the  four  years 
of  a  college  course  are  a  broad  enough  base  to 
support  a  full-length  novel.  A  man  is  not  born 
in  college,  and  he  seldom  dies  or  marries  there. 
The  struggle  which  decides  his  final  success  or 
failure  is  fought  on  other  fields.  As  to  the  life 
itself,  though  engrossing  enough  to  those  who 
lead  it,  as  stuff  for  fiction  it  is  scant,  —  a  life  of 
pleasant  monotony,  varied  by  contests  for  honors 
and  prizes  which  seem  paltry  to  the  man,  and 
made  exciting  by  that  most  fatuous  of  pursuits, 
college  "  politics."  Nevertheless,  it  has  unique 
features  of  its  own,  peculiar  developments  of 
sentiment  and  humor  which  appeal  to  the  imag 
ination.  To  these,  the  man  who  has  lived  it  and 
found  it  sweet  will  often  attempt  to  give  shape, 
as  he  looks  back  upon  it  in  less  happy  years, 
even  though  he  may  understand  well  enough  that 
such  fragmentary  experiences  want  the  unity 
and  importance  required  in  a  continuous  fic 
tion.  As  experiments  of  this  nature,  Willis's  col 
lege  stories  should  be  regarded.  It  must  be  con 
fessed  that  he  idealized  a  good  deal.  His  geese 


COLLEGE  LIFE.  65 

were  always  swans,  and  he  practiced  an  airy  ex 
aggeration  provoking  to  the  statistician  or  the 
literal  minded.  He  speaks,  for  example,  in  an 
off-hand  way  of  "  the  thousand  students  of  the 
university,"  though  the  number  never  reached 
half  a  thousand  at  any  time  when  he  was  a  stu 
dent.  But  in  the  incidental  glimpses  of  the  life 
which  he  described,  in  the  atmosphere  which  he 
flung  around  it,  he  was  true  to  the  spirit  of  that 
life,  —  the  gay,  irresponsible  existence  of  half- 
idle,  half-earnest  youth,  whose  friendships  are 
warm  and  unquestioning,  to  whom  the  world  is 
new,  the  future  full  of  promise,  and  every  girl  a 
Venus.  There  is  a  glamour  over  it  all  —  "  the 
golden  exhalations  of  the  dawn  "  —  and  romance 
is  the  proper  medium  in  which  to  present  it. 

"  Bright  as  seems  to  me  this  seat  of  my  Alma 
Mater,  however,"  wrote  Willis  in  "  Edith  Linsey," 
"  and  gayly  as  I  describe  it,  it  is  to  me  a  picture  of 
memory,  glazed  and  put  away ;  if  I  see  it  ever  again 
it  will  be  but  to  walk  through  its  embowered  streets 
by  a  midnight  moon.  It  is  vain  and  heartbreaking  to 
go  back  after  absence  to  any  spot  of  earth,  of  which 
the  interest  was  the  human  love  whose  home  and 
cradle  it  had  been.  There  is  nothing  on  earth  so 
mournful  and  unavailing,  as  to  return  to  the  scenes 
which  are  unchanged,  and  look  to  return  to  ourselves 
and  others  as  we  were  when  we  thus  knew  them." 

On  leaving  college,  Willis  signalized  his  en- 

5 


66  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

trance  upon  a  literary  career  of  forty  years  by 
collecting  and  publishing  a  score  of  his  juvenile 
poems,  in  a  thin  volume  entitled  "  Sketches," 
and  dedicated  to  his  father.  It  contained,  among 
other  things,  four  of  the  scriptural  pieces  which 
had  done  more  than  anything  else  to  give  him 
reputation.  This  vein  he  continued  to  cultivate, 
and  added  others  in  later  volumes  till  they  reached 
the  number  of  eighteen.  Even  in  his  last  years 
he  wrote  one  more  scriptural  poem  for  the  "  New 
York  Ledger,"  at  the  persuasion  of  the  enter 
prising  Mr.  Bonner,  reinforced  by  the  proffer  of 
a  hundred  dollars.  As  there  is  little  difference 
in  value  between  the  earliest  and  latest  of  these, 
it  may  be  well  to  speak  of  them  here  collec 
tively.  It  is  not  hard  to  explain  the  vogue 
which  they  obtained,  or  the  reason  why  many 
people  at  this  day,  who  know  nothing  else  of 
Willis,  have  read  his  Scripture  poems.  One  still 
encounters,  here  and  there,  a  good  old  country 
lady  who  reads  little  poetry,  but  who  can  quote 
from  "Absalom"  or  "  Jephthah's  Daughter" 
and  thinks  them  quite  the  best  product  of  the 
American  Parnassus.  They  made  good  Sunday 
reading.  They  appealed  to  an  intensely  bibli 
cal  and  not  very  literary  constituency ;  to  a  pub 
lic  familiar  with  the  Old  and  New  Testaments 
alike,  and  familiarized  also  with  the  life  and 
scenery  of  the  East  through  Bible  commentaries 


COLLEGE  LIFE.  67 

and  the  lectures  of  missionaries  who  had  trav 
eled  in  Palestine.  They  were  pleased  to  meet 
again  the  most  striking  episodes  and  affecting 
situations  in  the  sacred  narratives,  set  forth  in 
easy  verse,  embroidered  prettily,  and  with  the 
sentiments  and  reflections  proper  to  the  subject 
all  duly  marshaled  before  them.  It  lent  con- 
creteness  to  the  story  to  learn  that  in  the  room 
of  Jairus's  daughter, 

"  The  spice  lamps  in  the  alabaster  urns 
Burned  dimly  and  the  white  and  fragrant  smoke 
Curled  indolently  on  the  chamber  walls ;  " 

or  that  the  Shunamite's  little  son,  on  his  way  to 
the  field,  passed 

"  Through  the  light  green  hollows  where  the  lambs 
Go  for  the  tender  grass  ;  " 

or  that  the  scene  of  Christ's  baptism 

"  Was  a  green  spot  in  the  wilderness 
Touched  by  the  river  Jordan.     The  dark  pine 
Never  had  dropped  its  tassels  on  the  moss 
Tufting  the  leaning  bank,  nor  on  the  grass 
Of  the  broad  circle  stretching  evenly 
To  the  straight  larches  had  a  heavier  foot 
Thau  the  wild  heron's  trodden.     Softly  in 
Through  a  long  aisle  of  willows,  dim  and  cool, 
Stole  the  clear  waters  with  their  muffled  feet, 
And,  hushing  as  they  spread  into  the  light, 
Circled  the  edges  of  the  pebbled  tank 
Slowly,  then  rippled  through  the  woods  away." 

For  the  merely  literary  quality  of  these  poems, 
independent  of  their  sacred  associations,  not 


68  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

very  much  can  be  said.  They  were  certainly 
remarkably  mature  work  for  a  college  boy,  pure 
in  taste,  delicate  and  correct  in  execution.  But 
there  is  a  slightly  hollow  ring  to  them,  as  of 
verse  exercises  on  set  themes.  The  inspiration 
is  at  second  hand,  from  books  and  not  from  life. 
As  other  juvenile  poets  have  gone  to  their  clas 
sics  for  a  subject,  Willis  went  to  his  Bible.  He 
drank  at  Siloa's  fount  instead  of  Helicon,  and 
tuned  the  psaltery  instead  of  the  lyre.  We  have 
evidently  not  reached  the  real  Willis  yet.  In 
general  the  experiment  of  paraphrasing  the  nar 
rative  portions  of  the  Scriptures  has  not  been 
successful.  Something  is  lost  when  the  impres 
sive  simplicity  of  the  original  is  blown  out  into 
wordy  and  sentimental  verse.  This  process  of 
spinning  rhetorical  commonplaces  from  brief 
texts  is  well  illustrated  in  the  following  passage 
from  "  Lazarus  and  Mary :  "  — 

"  But  to  the  mighty  heart 
That  in  Gethsemane  sweat  drops  of  blood, 
Taking  for  us  the  cup  that  might  not  pass  — 
The  heart  whose  breaking  chord  upon  the  cross 
Made  the  earth  tremble  and  the  sun  afraid 
To  look  upon  his  agony  —  the  heart 
Of  a  lost  world's  Redeemer  —  overflowed, 
Touched  by  a  mourner's  sorrow !    Jesus  wept !  " 

This  is  what  Lowell  called  "  inspiration  and  wa 
ter."  Alfred  de  Vigny,  a  fine  spirit  and  good 
Doet,  has  tried  the  same  thing  in  French  and 


COLLEGE  LIFE.  69 

succeeded  little,  if  at  all,  better  than  the  Yankee 
collegian.  The  inadequacy  of  Willis's  Scripture 
renderings  is  made  more  apparent  by  the  fact 
that  his  blank  verse  is  not  a  good  vehicle  for 
strong  feeling.  It  is  correct  and  flowing,  some 
times  musical,  but  seldom  energetic.  It  favored 
his  tendency  to  diffuseness  and  it  often  degen 
erates  into  a  kind  of  accentless  oratio  soluta, 
which  is  only  verse  because  it  scans,  and  only 
blank  verse  because  it  does  not  rhyme. 

Upon  the  whole  the  most  genuine  expression 
of  Willis's  talent  in  this  early  volume  was  in  the 
piece  entitled  "  Better  Moments,"  which  remains 
one  of  his  best,  because  one  of  his  most  sponta 
neous  poems. 

It  makes  one  realize  the  startling  growth  of 
the  United  States  in  the  last  fifty  years,  to  re 
member  that  Willis  had  already  won  a  "  na 
tional  reputation  "  by  his  poetry  when  he  left 
college.  The  air  was  much  thinner  then,  Amer 
ican  literature  much  scantier,  the  population  so 
small  and  so  comparatively  homogeneous,  that 
the  suffrages  of  a  few  hundreds  of  readers  in 
New  York,  Boston,  New  Haven,  and  Philadel 
phia,  and  the  praises  of  a  few  dozen  journals 
were  enough  to  bestow  fame.  What  undergrad 
uate  nowadays,  however  clever  or  precocious, 
could  hope  to  make  his  voice  heard  beyond  the 
limits  of  the  college  yard  ? 


70  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

It  remains  only  to  mention  that  the  presence 
in  New  Haven  of  the  two  poets  Percival  and 
Hillhouse,  when  Willis  was  a  student  there,  was 
not  without  influence  on  his  literary  develop 
ment.  Percival  went  to  West  Point  as  Pro 
fessor  of  Chemistry  in  1824  and  did  not  come 
back  to  New  Haven  until  1827,  but  Hillhouse 
resided  constantly  at  his  beautiful  home  in  the 
outskirts  of  the  city,  "  Sachem's  Wood."  His 
Master's  Oration,  "  The  Education  of  a  Poet," 
and  his  Phi  Beta  Kappa  poem,  "The  Judg 
ment,"  had  given  him  great  fame  in  the  univer 
sity  as  an  orator  and  poet.  "  '  Hadad '  was  pub 
lished  in  1825,"  wrote  Willis,  "  during  my  sec 
ond  year  in  college,  and  to  me  it  was  the  opening 
of  a  new  heaven  of  imagination.  The  leading 
characters  possessed  me  for  months,  and  the 
bright,  clear,  harmonious  language  was,  for  a 
long  time,  constantly  in  my  ears."  Of  its  author 
he  said,  "  In  no  part  of  the  world  have  I  seen  a 
man  of  more  distinguished  mien.  .  .  .  Though 
my  acquaintance  with  him  was  slight,  he  con 
fided  to  me,  in  a  casual  conversation,  the  plan  of 
a  series  of  dramas,  different  from  all  he  had  at 
tempted,  upon  which  he  designed  to  work  with 
the  first  mood  and  leisure  he  could  command." 


CHAPTER  III. 

1827-1831. 

BOSTON   AND   THE   AMERICAN   MONTHLY. 

THE  profession  of  letters  was  Willis's  mani 
fest  destiny.  Family  tradition,  his  inborn  tastes 
and  talents,  the  course  of  his  studies,  and  his 
achievements  hitherto,  all  pointed  that  way.  Yet 
in  the  then  state  of  the  American  press  it  took 
no  small  amount  of  self-confidence  to  decline  a 
paying  profession  and  launch  upon  the  uncer 
tain  currents  of  literary  life.  His  next  four 
years  were  spent  in  Boston  and  were  years  of 
apprenticeship  in  his  life-work  as  an  editor  and 
journalist.  He  continued  to  write  and  publish 
verses,  but  his  hand  was  acquiring  cunning, 
through  constant  practice  and  frequent  failure, 
in  the  production  of  that  light,  brilliant  prose 
which  made  him  the  favorite  periodical  writer  of 
his  day ;  and  he  was  also  learning  how  to  con 
duct  a  magazine.  He  still  made  occasional  con 
tributions  to  the  "  Recorder  "  —  among  others 
the  New  Year's  verses,  then  essential  to  every 
weU-regulated  paper  — for  1828  and  1829.  But 


72  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

his  first  editorial  engagement  was  with  Samuel 
G.  Goodrich,  the  well-known  bookseller  and  pub 
lisher,  who  had  removed  from  Hartford  to  Bos 
ton  in  1826.  One  of  the  first  books  which  he 
had  published  in  Boston  was  Willis's  "  Sketches," 
and  he  now  employed  the  author  of  it  to  edit 
"  The  Legendary  "  for  1828  and  "  The  Token  " 
for  1829.  Goodrich  was  a  fine  example  of  Yan 
kee  enterprise  and  versatility.  He  was  one  of 
the  pioneers  of  "  the  trade  "  in  America,  enter 
ing  the  field  at  the  same  time  with  the  Harpers. 
Under  the  pen-name  of  "  Peter  Parley,"  he 
wrote  or  edited  a  long  list  of  books  for  the 
young,  histories,  travels,  biographies,  tales,  works 
of  natural  history,  school  text-books,  etc.  He 
had  himself  some  pretensions  as  a  poet,  by  vir 
tue  of  "  The  Outcast  and  Other  Poems,"  1841. 
He  was  an  extensive  traveler,  and  he  became  in 
1851  United  States  consul  at  Paris.  It  was 
the  fashion  among  a  certain  set  in  Boston  to 
abuse  "  Peter  Parley  "  and  laugh  at  his  literary 
claims.  But  he  was  a  very  successful  publisher, 
and  in  selecting  his  editorial  assistants,  he  had  a 
keen  eye  for  the  kind  of  talent  that  takes,  and 
the  kind  of  work  that  pays.  In  his  interesting 
"  Recollections  of  a  Lifetime "  he  gives  con 
trasted  sketches  of  the  two  principal  contribu 
tors  to  his  annuals  —  Willis  and  Hawthorne. 
Goodrich's  perceptions  were,  perhaps,  not  of  the 


BOSTON  AND  THE  AMERICAN  MONTHLY.      73 

finest,  but  he  was  a  shrewd  observer  of  matters 
within  his  ken,  and  his  recollections  of  Willis 
are  worth  repeating. 

"  The  most  prominent  writer  for  '  The  Token '  was 
N.  P.  Willis.  His  articles  were  the  most  read,  the 
most  admired,  the  most  abused,  and  the  most  advan 
tageous  to  the  work.  In  1827  I  published  his  vol 
ume  entitled  '  Sketches.'  It  brought  out  quite  a 
shower  of  criticism,  in  which  praise  and  blame  were 
about  equally  dispensed :  at  the  same  time  the  work 
sold  with  a  readiness  quite  unusual  for  a  book  of  po 
etry  at  that  period.  One  thing  is  certain,  everybody 
thought  Willis  worth  criticising.  He  has  been,  I  sus 
pect,  more  written  about  than  any  other  literary  man 
in  our  history.  Some  of  the  attacks  upon  him  pro 
ceeded,  no  doubt,  from  a  conviction  that  he  was  a 
man  of  extraordinary  gifts  and  yet  of  extraordinary 
affectations,  and  the  lash  was  applied  in  kindness,  as 
that  of  a  school-master  to  a  loved  pupil's  back.  Some 
of  them  were  dictated  by  envy,  for  we  have  had  no 
other  example  of  literary  success  so  early,  'so  general, 
and  so  flattering.  That  Mr.  Willis  made  mistakes  in 
literature  and  life,  at  the  outset,  may  be  admitted  by 
his  best  friends  ;  for  it  must  be  remembered  that  be 
fore  he  was  five-and-twenty  he  was  more  read  than 
any  other  American  poet  of  his  time ;  and  besides, 
being  possessed  of  an  easy  and  captivating  address, 
he  became  the  pet  of  society  and  especially  of  the 
fairer  portion  of  it.  As  to  his  personal  character,  I 
need  only  say  that,  from  ths  beginning,  he  has  had  a 


74  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

larger  circle  of  steadfast  friends  than  almost  any 
man  within  my  knowledge.  It  is  curious  to  remark 
that  everything  Willis  wrote  attracted  immediate  at 
tention  and  excited  ready  praise,  while  the  produc 
tions  of  Hawthorne  were  almost  entirely  unnoticed. 
Willis  was  slender,  his  hair  sunny  and  silken,  his 
cheek  ruddy,  his  aspect  cheerful  and  confident.  He 
met  society  with  a  ready  and  welcome  hand  and  was 
received  readily  and  with  welcome." 

It  is  needless  to  pursue  the  contrast  which  the 
writer  goes  on  to  draw  between  Willis  and  the 
other  and  greater  Nathaniel,  who  was  then  "  the 
obscurest  man  of  letters  in  America."  The  pub 
lisher's  sympathies  were  obviously  with  his  more 
lively  and  popular  contributor,  and  he  is  puzzled 
to  understand  why  such  articles  as  "  Sights  from 
a  Steeple,"  "Sketches  beneath  an  Umbrella," 
"The  Wives  of  the  Dead,"  and  "The  Pro 
phetic  Pictures,"  should  have  "extorted  hardly 
a  word  of  either  praise  or  blame  "  when  orig 
inally  published  in  "  The  Token,"  while  "  now 
universally  acknowledged  to  be  productions  of 
extraordinary  depth,  meaning,  and  power."  He 
is  inclined  to  attribute  it  to  a  "  new  sense  "  in  a 
portion  of  the  reading  world  —  obtained  unluck 
ily  too  late  to  profit  the  publisher  of  "  The  To 
ken  "  —  "  which  led  them  to  study  the  mystical." 
To  Goodrich' s  personal  description  of  Willis 
may  be  added  the  following  little  portrait  by 


BOSTON  AND  THE  AMERICAN  MONTHLY.       75 

Dr.   Holmes,  who   remembers  him  well,  as  he 
looked  during  this  Boston  period. 

"  He  came  very  near  being  very  handsome.  He 
was  tall;  his  hair,  of  light  brown  color,  waved  in  lux 
uriant  abundance,  and  his  cheek  was  as  rosy  as  if  it 
had  been  painted  to  show  behind  the  footlights,  and 
he  dressed  with  artistic  elegance.  He  was  something 
between  a  remembrance  of  Count  d'Orsay  and  an 
anticipation  of  Oscar  Wilde.  There  used  to  be  in 
the  gallery  of  the  Luxembourg  a  picture  of  Hippoly- 
tus  and  Phaedra,  in  which  the  beautiful  young  man, 
who  had  kindled  a  passion  in  the  heart  of  his  wicked 
stepmother,  always  reminded  me  of  Willis." 

"  The  Legendary  "  described  itself  as  consist 
ing  of  original  pieces  in  prose  and  verse ;  tales, 
ballads,  and  romances,  chiefly  illustrative  of 
American  history,  scenery,  and  manners.  It 
was  designed  as  a  periodical,  but  only  two  vol 
umes  were  issued,  one  in  the  early,  and  one  in 
the  later  part  of  1828.  "The  work  proved  a 
miserable  failure,"  said  Goodrich,  though  num 
bering  among  its  contributors  Mrs.  Sigourney, 
Miss  Sedgwick,  Halleck,  Pierpont,  Willis,  Gay- 
lord  Clark,  George  Luiit,  Grenville  Mellen, 
and  others  less  known  to  this  generation.  Wil 
lis  wrote  the  two  prefaces  and  contributed  half 
a  dozen  poems  of  no  importance,  unless  we  ex 
cept  "  The  Annoyer,"  which  had  considerable 
currency,  and  three  prose  papers,  "  Unwritten 


76  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

Poetry,"  "  Unwritten  Philosophy,"  and  "  Leaves 
from  a  Colleger's  Album."  These  last  were 
very  juvenile  and  he  never  reprinted  them.  The 
first  two  were  tales  with  a  moral,  one  depicting 
the  restorative  influences  of  nature  on  a  heart 
crushed  by  bereavement,  the  other  describing  a 
scholarly  recluse,  who  lived  alone  with  nature 
and  his  books,  and  finally  educated  and  married 
his  landlady's  daughter.  The  story  in  both 
instances  is  very  slight,  overladen  with  senti 
ment,  descriptive  digressions,  and  philosophy, 
that  might  better  have  stayed  "  unwritten."  In 
short,  they  are  tedious  —  which  Willis  in  his 
later  work  never  was.  "  Unwritten  Poetry " 
included,  however,  a  description  of  Trenton 
Falls  and  a  fine  rhapsody  about  water  which  he 
rehabilitated  afterwards  and  incorporated  with 
"  Edith  Linsey."  Both  of  these  had  the  honor 
—  in  the  then  paucity  of  our  literature  —  to 
be  selected  by  Mary  Russell  Mitford  for  her 
"  Stories  of  American  Life  by  American  Au 
thors."  "  Leaves  from  a  Colleger's  Album  " 
was  a  first  experiment  of  another  kind,  a  hu 
morous  sketch  of  a  trip  on  the  Erie  Canal, 
utilizing  the  experiences  of  his  senior  vacation, 
and,  in  particular,  the  incident  of  his  reading 
a  sermon  in  the  cabin  of  the  canal  boat  on 
Sunday.  It  contains,  in  the  person  of  Job 
Clark,  the  nucleus  of  Forbearance  Smith  in  the 


BOSTON  AND   THE  AMERICAN  MONTHLY.      77 

"  Slingsby  "  papers  —  the  nearest  approach  that 
Willis  ever  made  to  the  genuine  creation  of  a 
character.  He  was  always  thus  economical  of 
his  material,  repeatedly  working  over  the  same 
stuff  into  new  shapes. 

"  The  Token  "  belonged  to  the  class  of  illus 
trated  publications  known  as  Annuals.  It  was 
the  age  of  Annuals,  Gift  Books,  Boudoir  Books, 
Books  of  Beauty,  Flowers  of  Loveliness,  and 
Leaflets  of  Memory.  The  taste  for  these  or 
nate  combinations  of  literature  and  art  was  im 
ported  from  England,  where  the  Ackermans  had 
published  "  The  Forget-Me-Not,"  the  earliest 
specimen  of  the  kind,  in  1823.  Carey  &  Lea 
of  Philadelphia  brought  out  the  first  American 
Annual,  "  The  Atlantic  Souvenir,"  for  which 
Willis  had  been  asked  to  write,  when  in  college, 
and  to  which  he  actually  did  contribute  a  copy 
of  birth-day  verses,  "  I  'm  twenty-two  —  I  'm 
twenty-two,"  in  the  volume  for  1829.  These 
were  written,  he  affirmed,  "  in  a  blank  leaf 
of  a  barber's  Testament,  while  waiting  to  be 
shaved."  They  were  also  inserted  in  the  "Lon 
don  Literary  Souvenir  "  for  the  same  year,  by 
Alaric  A.  Watts,  a  copious  editor  of  Annuals, 
whose  middle  initial  was  cruelly  asserted  by 
Lockhart  to  stand  for  Attila.  The  rage  for 
Annuals  soon  became  general  and  lasted  for 
about  twenty  years.  Goodrich  enumerates  some 


78  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

forty  of  them,  bearing  such  fantastic  titles  as 
The  Gem,  The  Opal,  The  Wreath,  The  Casket, 
The  Rose,  The  Amulet,  The  Keepsake,  Pearls 
of  the  West,  Friendship's  Offering.  And  these 
are  probably  not  half  the  list.  There  were 
religious  Annuals,  juvenile  Annuals,  oriental, 
landscape,  botanic  Annuals.  Most  rummagers 
among  the  upper  shelves  of  an  old  library  have 
taken  down  two  or  three  of  them,  blown  the 
dust  from  their  gilt  edges,  ruffled  the  tissue 
papers  that  veil  "  The  Bride,"  "  The  Nun," 
"  The  Sisters,"  and  "  The  Fair  Penitent,"  and 
wondered  in  what  age  of  the  world  these  re 
markable  "  embellishments  "  and  the  still  more 
remarkable  letter -press  which  they  embellish 
could  have  reflected  American  life.  There  is 
a  faded  elegance  about  them,  as  of  an  old  ball 
dress  :  a  faint  aroma,  as  of  withered  roses, 
breathes  from  the  page.  Those  steel-engraved 
beauties,  languishing,  simpering,  insipid  as  fash 
ion  plates,  with  high-arched  marble  brows,  pearl 
necklaces,  and  glossy  ringlets  —  not  a  line  in 
their  faces  or  a  bone  in  their  bodies  :  that 
Highland  Chieftain,  that  Young  Buccaneer, 
that  Bandit's  Child,  all  in  smoothest  mezzotint, 
—  what  kind  of  a  world  did  they  masquerade 
in?  It  was  a  needlework  world,  a  world  in 
which  there  was  always  moonlight  on  the  lake 
and  twilight  in  the  vale ;  where  drooped  the  wil- 


BOSTON  AND   THE  AMERICAN  MONTHLY.     79 

low  and  bloomed  the  eglantine,  and  jessamine 
embowered  the  cot  of  the  village  maid;  where 
the  lark  warbled  in  the  heavens  and  the  night 
ingale  chanted  in  the  grove  'neath  the  mould 
ering  ivy-mantled  tower ;  where  vesper  chimes 
and  the  echoes  of  the  merry  bugle-ugle-ugle 
horn  were  borne  upon  the  zephyr  across  the 
yellow  corn  ;  where  Isabella  sang  to  the  harp 
(with  her  hair  down)  and  the  tinkling  guitar  of 
the  serenader  under  her  balcony  made  response ; 
a  world  in  which  there  were  fairy  isles,  en 
chanted  grottoes,  peris,  gondolas,  and  gazelles. 
All  its  pleasantly  rococo  landscape  has  van 
ished,  brushed  rudely  away  by  realism  and  a 
"  sincere  "  art  and  an  "  earnest "  literature. 

In  these  Gems  and  Albums,  the  gemmy  and 
albuminous  illustrations  alternated  with  roman 
tic  tales  of  mediaeval  or  eastern  life  and  with 

"Lines  on  Seeing ,"  or  "Stanzas  occasioned 

by  "  something.  "  The  May-Flowers  of  Life," 
for  example,  "  suggested  by  the  author's  having 
found  a  branch  of  May  in  a  vqlume  of  poems 
which  a  friend  had  left  there  several  years  ago." 
In  the  Annual  dialect  a  ship  was  a  "  bark,"  a 
bed  was  a  "couch,"  a  window  was  a  "casement," 
a  shoe  was  a  "  sandal,"  a  boat  was  a  "  shallop," 
and  a  book  was  a  "  tome."  Certain  properties 
became  gemmy  by  force  of  association,  as  sea- 
shells,  lattices,  and  ^Eolian  harps.  In  England 


80  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

L.  E.  L.  and  in  America  Percival  and  Mrs. 
Sigourney  were  perhaps  the  gemmiest  poets. 
But  much  of  Willis's  poetry  was  album  verse, 
with  an  air  of  the  boudoir  and  the  ball-room 
about  it,  a  silky  elegance  and  an  exotic  perfume 
that  smack  of  that  very  sentimental  and  artifi 
cial  school.  This  passage  from  "The  Declara 
tion  "  is  in  point :  — 

"  'T  was  late  and  the  gay  company  was  gone, 
And  light  lay  soft  on  the  deserted  room 
From  alabaster  vases,  and  a  scent 
Of  orange  leaves  and  sweet  verbena  came 
From  the  unshuttered  window  on  the  air, 
And  the  rich  pictures,  with  their  dark  old  tints, 
Hung  like  a  twilight  landscape,  and  all  things 
Seemed  hushed  into  a  slumber.     Isabelle, 
The  dark  eyed,  spiritual  Isabelle, 
Was  leaning  on  her  harp." 

"  The  Token,"  begun  in  1828  and  continued 
to  1842,  was  edited  by  Goodrich  every  year  ex 
cept  1829,  when  Willis  had  charge  of  it.  Like 
other  Annuals  it  contained,  in  spots,  some  good 
art  and  good  writing.  There  were  delicately 
designed  and  engraved  vignette  titles  or  pres 
entation  plates  by  Cheney,  the  Hartford  artist. 
There  was  an  occasional  contribution,  in  prose, 
from  Longfellow  or  Mrs.  Child  —  then  Miss 
Francis,  and  likewise  a  contributor  to  "  The  Leg 
endary."  Many  of  Hawthorne's  "  Twice-Told 
Tales"  came  out  in  "The  Token."  Mrs.  Sigour- 


BOSTON  AND    THE  AMERICAN  MONTHLY.       81 

ney's  "  Connecticut  River  "  divided  with  Wil 
lis's  "The  Soldier's  Widow"  the  8100  prize 
offered  by  the  publisher  for  1828.  Among  the 
contributors  to  Willis's  volume  (1829)  were 
John  Neal,  Colonel  William  L.  Stone,  Mrs.  Si- 
gourney,  Mrs.  Hale,  the  Rev.  T.  H.  Gallaudet, 
Willis's  Albany  friend,  J.  B.  Van  Schaick,  and 
Goodrich  himself.  The  Rev.  G.  W.  Doane  — 
afterward  Bishop  Doane  —  gave  his  well  known 
verses,  "  What  is  that,  Mother  ?  "  Willis  gave 
five  poems  of  his  own,  the  only  noteworthy 
one  among  which  was  "  Saturday  Afternoon," 
written  to  accompany  the  frontispiece,  engraved 
by  Ellis  from  a  painting  by  Fisher,  and  repre 
senting  children  swinging  in  a  barn.  This  had 
more  the  character  of  a  simple,  popular  ballad 
than  anything  else  which  he  had  written,  and 
was  liked  by  many  readers  who  cared  little 
about  his  more  elaborate  verse.  Another  poem 
in  "The  Token,"  "Psyche  before  the  Tribunal  of 
Venus,"  he  wrote  for  the  engraving  by  Cheney 
from  a  drawing  of  Fragonard.  A  college  tale, 
"  The  Ruse,"  was  a  slight  advance  on  the  exper 
iments  in  "  The  Legendary  ;  "  the  dialogue  was 
handled  more  freely,  but  the  story  was  weak  as 
a  whole,  hardly  worth  mentioning,  certainly  not 
worth  preserving.  Willis  continued  to  contrib 
ute  verses  to  "  The  Token"  after  he  had  resigned 
its  editorship.  "  To  a  City  Pigeon,"  "  On  a 


82  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

Picture  of  a  Girl  leading  her  Blind  Mother 
through  the  Woods,"  and  doubtless  other  pieces 
were  printed  in  subsequent  numbers.  He  wrote 
for  other  Annuals,  at  various  times  :  "  The 
Power  of  an  Injured  Look,"  for  "  The  Gift," 
a  Christmas  book,  1845  ;  an  article  "  On 
Dress,"  for  "The  Opal,"  1848,  and  edited  "The 
Thought  Blossom,"  a  memorial  volume,  as  late 
as  1854.  "  The  Torn  Hat  "  was  contributed 
to  "The  Youth's  Keepsake"  for  1829,  and 
"Contemplation  "  was  written  in  1828  to  ac 
company  an  engraving  in  "  Remember  Me,"  a 
religious  Annual  published  in  Philadelphia.  But 
he  had  no  very  high  opinion  of  the  class  of  lit 
erature  that  they  cultivated,  and  spoke  of  them 
as  "  yearly  flotillas  of  trash." 

In  the  spring  of  1829  he  entered  upon  his 
first  serious  venture  as  a  journalist,  by  start 
ing  the  "  American  Monthly  Magazine,"  which 
ran  two  years  and  a  half  —  from  April,  1829, 
to  August,  1831.  Mr.  Thomas  Gold  Apple- 
ton  describes  Willis's  undertaking  as  "a  slim 
monthly,  written  chiefly  by  himself,  but  with  the 
true  magazine  flavor."  Appleton  and  his  friend 
Motley,  then  students  in  Harvard,  were  both 
contributors.  For  a  young  litterateur,  only  a 
year  and  a  half  out  of  college,  without  capital, 
without  backing,  almost  without  experience,  the 
establishment  of  a  monthly  magazine  was  cer- 


BOSTON  AND   THE  AMERICAN  MONTHLY.     83 

tainly  an  enterprise  of  some  boldness.  His 
expectations,  however,  were  modest  enough,  and 
his  preliminary  card,  "  To  the  Public,"  casts 
some  light  on  the  conditions  of  literary  journal 
ism  at  that  time.  He  says  that  he  cannot  pay 
much  for  contributions,  like  the  English  maga 
zines  which  he  took  for  his  model.  "  The  dif 
ficulties  of  transmission  over  such  an  immense 
country  and  the  comparatively  small  proportion 
of  literary  readers  limit  our  circulation  to  a 
thousand  or  two,  at  the  farthest."  He  had, 
moreover,  "  the  ebb  of  a  boyish  reputation  " 
against  him.  Notwithstanding  he  launched  upon 
his  voyage  with  excellent  pluck  and  vigor.  He 
conducted  his  magazine  with  little  assistance, 
writing  himself  from  thirty  to  forty  pages  of 
printed  matter  every  month  in  the  shape  of  tales, 
poems,  essays,  book  reviews,  and  sketches  of  life 
and  travel.  Boston  was  not  yet  the  Boston  of 
Emerson,  Longfellow,  Lowell,  and  Holmes,  but 
it  had  already  as  fair  a  claim  to  the  title  of 
literary  metropolis  as  New  Yorkv  Everett  and 
Channing  were  great  names.  Dana,  Pierpont, 
and  Sprague  were  among  its  poets.  These  men 
were  not  available  for  Willis's  purposes,  but  he 
rallied  to  his  support  a  number  of  younger  men, 
such  as  Richard  Hildreth,  the  historian,  George 
Lunt,  the  poet,  Park  Benjamin,  Isaac  McLel- 
lan,  the  Rev.  George  B.  Cheever,  Albert  Pike, 


84  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

afterwards  the  Arkansas  poet  and  fire-eater, 
and  Rufus  Dawes,  —  then  a  budding  genius, 
subsequently  a  preacher  of  erratic  doctrines,  — 
J.  O.  Rockwell,  Mrs.  Sigourney,  and  others 
whose  names  have  fallen  silent.  Next  to  the 
editor's  own  graceful  work,  the  most  notable 
things  given  to  the  public  through  the  columns 
of  the  "  American  Monthly "  were  Pike's 
"  Hymns  to  the  Gods,"  poems  of  a  richly  clas 
sical  inspiration,  which  have  often  provoked 
comparison  with  Keats's  odes;  and  which,  if 
their  workmanship  were  equal  to  their  imag 
inative  fervor,  would  justify  the  comparison. 

Willis  led  off  in  the  opening  number  with 
a  carefully  written,  but  not  very  characteristic, 
essay  on  "  Unwritten  Music."  It  was  thought 
monstrous  fine  by  his  friends,  but  suggests,  it 
must  be  confessed,  that  dreariest  product  of  the 
human  mind,  —  a  prize  composition.  As  a 
study  of  the  harmonies  of  nature,  it  was  much 
too  general  in  its  reflections  and  descriptions  to 
please  a  modern  taste,  wonted  to  the  sharp  and 
full  detail  of  Thoreau  and  his  successors.  The 
editorial  articles,  prose  and  verse,  in  the  "  Amer 
ican  Monthly  "  were  too  many  to  be  mentioned 
here  individually.  There  were  stories,  "  The 
Fancy  Ball,"  "The  Elopement,"  "P.  Calamus, 
Esq.,"  and  others  which  their  author  never  rec 
ognized  so  far  as  to  give  them  any  place  in  his 


BOSTON  AND   THE  AMERICAN  MONTHLY.      85 

collected  writings.  Others,  as  "  Baron  von  Raff- 
Ion0,"  "  Captain  Thompson,"  "  Incidents  in  the 
Life  of  a  Quiet  Man,"  etc.,  were  the  rough 
drafts  of  later  tales,  such  as  "Pedlar  Karl," 
"Larks  in  Vacation,"  and  "Scenes  of  Fear." 
"  Albina  M'Lush  "  was  the  best  of  these.  "  The 
Death  of  the  Gentle  Usher  "  contained  an  elo 
quent  passage  on  the  night  heavens,  which  ob 
tained  a  better  setting  in  "Edith  Linsey."  "  An 
Inkling  of  Adventure  "  lent  its  name  and  noth 
ing  else  to  the  first  published  collection  of  Wil 
lis's  "  Slingsby  "  stories.  Then  there  were 
sketches  of  travel  in  New  York  State  and  Can 
ada,  partly  reminiscences  of  senior  vacation  and 
partly  memorials  of  holidays  from  the  editorial 
desk,  spent  at  Saratoga,  Lebanon  Springs,  or 
elsewhere :  "  Notes  upon  a  Ramble,"  "  Letters 
of  Horace  Fritz,  Esq.,"  and  "  Pencillings  by  the 
Way,"  —  a  title  afterward  used  to  better  advan 
tage.  Parts  of  these  were  similarly  refurbished 
for  later  employment.  The  secret  of  that  skill 
ful  blending  of  gayety  and  sentiment,  the  quick, 
light  transitions,  which  make  much  of  the  charm 
of  Willis's  best  stories  and  sketches,  like  "  F. 
Smith,"  or  "Pasquali,"  he  had  not  yet  learned. 
In  these  earlier  efforts  the  serious  parts  drag 
and  the  humorous  parts  are  flashy  and  thin.  Be 
sides  the  monthly  "  table  "  there  were  editorial 
articles  of  that  rambling,  chatty  description  pe- 


86  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

culiar  to  the  period,  and  which  the  "  Noctes"  had 
done  as  much  as  anything  to  introduce :  "  Scrib- 
blings,"  "The  Scrap  Book,"  "The  Idle  Man," 
"  Tete-a-tete  Confessions,"  etc.,  in  which  the  ed 
itor  takes  the  reader  into  his  confidence  and 
his  sanctum,  makes  him  sit  down  in  his  red  mo 
rocco  dormeuse,  reads  him  bits  of  verse  from  his 
old  scrap-books  and  his  favorite  authors,  calls 
attention  to  his  japonica,  his  smoking  pastille, 
his  scarlet  South  American  trulian  (a  most  fa 
miliar  bird  with  Willis  —  he  gets  it  in  again  in 
"Lady  Ravelgold"),  and  his  two  dogs  Ugolino 
and  L.  E.  L.,  whose  lair  is  in  the  rejected  MSS. 
basket.  He  fosters  an  agreeable  fiction  that  he 
writes  with  a  bottle  of  Rudesheimer  and  a  plate 
of  olives  at  his  elbow,  and  he  says  now  and  then 
in  a  hospitable  aside  "  Take  another  olive,"  or 
"Pass  the  Johannisbergh " ;  this  to  his  imagi 
nary  interlocutor,  Cousin  Florence,  or  Tom  Las- 
celles,  or  The  Idle  Man,  an  epicure  and  dandy, 
"who  eats  in  summer  with  an  amber-handled 
fork  to  keep  his  palm  cool." 

These  amiable  coxcombries  of  Willis  gave 
dire  offense  to  the  critics,  and  especially  to  Jo 
seph  T.  Buckingham,  the  veteran  of  the  Boston 
press  and  editor  of  the  "  Courier,"  then  the 
most  influential  Whig  newspaper  in  Massachu 
setts.  He  published  epigrams  on  Willis,  with 
very  blunt  points,  administered  fatherly  rebukes 


BOSTON  AND   THE  AMERICAN  MONTHLY.     87 

to  him  for  his  affected  English,  and  objected 
strongly  to  Ugolino,  L.  E.  L.,  and  the  trulian. 
Willis  retorted  in  kind,  and  a  good-natured  war 
raged  between  the  "  Courier  "  and  the  "  Ameri 
can  Monthly,"  though  their  editors  were  pri 
vately  the  best  of  friends.  In  his  "  Specimens 
of  Newspaper  Literature,"  Buckingham  paid  a 
glowing  and,  indeed,  extravagant  compliment  to 
the  talents  of  his  young  adversary.  Willis's  ex 
perience  in  editing  the  "  American  Monthly  " 
was  of  great  advantage  to  him.  He  had  a  natu 
ral  instinct  for  journalism,  and  he  soon  acquired 
by  practice  that  personal,  sympathetic  attitude 
toward  his  readers,  and  that  ready  adjustment 
of  himself  to  the  public  taste,  which  made  him 
the  most  popular  magazinist  of  his  day  and  de 
fined  at  once  his  success  and  his  limitations. 
For  its  purposes  Willis's  crisp  prose  was  admi 
rable:  "delicate  and  brief  like  a  white  jacket, 
—  transparent  like  a  lump  of  ice  in  champagne, 
—  soft-tempered  like  the  sea-breeze  at  night." 
It  had  an  easy,  conversational  gr,ace,  the  air  of 
"  the  town,"  the  tone  of  good  society.  In  his 
review  of  Lady  Morgan's  "Book  of  the  Bou 
doir,"  he  made  a  plea  for  that  neglig6  style 
which  he  practiced  so  daintily  himself.  u  We 
love  this  rambling,  familiar  gossip.  It  is  the 
undress  of  the  mind.  There  are  few  people 
who  possess  the  talent  of  graceful  trifling,  either 


88  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

in  writing  or  conversation.  Study  may  make 
anything  but  this.  It  is  like  nawet£  in  charac 
ter, —  nature  let  alone."  There  was  a  great 
deal  of  good  writing  in  Willis's  "American 
Monthly  "  articles ;  bright  thoughts  expressed 
in  exquisite  English,  here  and  there  a  page 
which  Charles  Lamb  or  Leigh  Hunt  might  have 
been  glad  to  claim.  Some  of  these  he  rescued 
from  the  old  files  of  the  magazine  and  inserted 
in  his  later  work.  The  chapter  on  "Minute 
Philosophies,"  "A  Morning  in  the  Library," 
and  "  The  Substance  of  a  Diary  of  Sickness  " 
were  used  again  in  "  Edith  Linsey,"  and  a  spir 
ited  description  of  Nahant  in  one  of  the  "  ta 
bles  "  did  duty  in  "F.  Smith."  But  many  a 
nice  bit  was  foo  small  for  resetting  and  remained 
lost  in  the  ephemeral  context,  —  many  such  a 
scrap  as  this  little  picture  of  summer  in  town : 

"  Was  ever  such  intense,  unmitigated  sunshine  ? 
There  is  nothing  on  the  hard,  opaque  sky  but  a  mere 
rag  of  a  cloud,  like  a  handkerchief  on  a  tablet  of 
blue  marble,  and  the  edge  of  the  shadow  of  that  tall 
•chimney  is  as  definite  as  a  hair,  and  the  young  elm 
that  leans  over  the  fence  is  copied  in  perfect  and  mo 
tionless  leaves  like  a  very  painting  on  the  broad  side 
walk." 

The  "New  England  Galaxy,"  which  was  also 
under  Buckingham's  management,  was  edited 
for  a  time  by  one  William  Joseph  Snelling,  who 


•OS TON  AND    THE  AMERICAN  MONTHLY.       89 

made  quite  a  stir  in  Boston  newspaper  circles. 
He  had  been  an  uiider-officer  in  the  army  and 
stationed  somewhere  in  the  Northwest,  but  came 
to  Boston  about  1830  and  devoted  himself  to 
sensational  journalism  and  in  particular  to  a 
crusade  against  gamblers.  His  life  was  threat 
ened  for  this,  and  he  converted  his  office  into  a 
sort  of  arsenal.  In  1831  he  published  a  slash 
ing  lampoon,  "  Truth :  a  New  Year's  Gift  for 
Scribblers,"  in  which  he  blackguarded  American 
writers  in  general  and  paid  his  respects  to  Wil 
lis  as  follows :  — 

"  Muse,  shall  we  not  a  few  brief  lines  afford 
To  give  poor  Natty  P.  his  meet  reward  ? 
What  has  he  done  to  be  despised  by  all 
Within  whose  hatids  his  harmless  scribblings  fall  ? 
Why,  as  in  band-box  trim  he  walks  the  streets, 
Turns  up  the  nose  of  every  man  he  meets, 
As  if  it  scented  carrion  ?     Why  of  late 
Do  all  the  critics  claw  his  shallow  pate "? 
True  he  's  a  fool ;  —  if  that 's  a  hanging  thing, 
Let  Prentice,  Whittier,  Mellen  also  swing." 

Some  of  this  delicate  banter  was  exhumed  and 
quoted  a  few  years  later  by  Captain  Marry  at, 
in  the  article  in  the  "  Metropolitan  "  which  led 
to  the  affair  of  honor  between  that  warrior  and 
Willis.  The  latter  answered  Snelling  "con 
temptuously  but  effectively,"  Goodrich  reports, 
"  in  some  half  dozen  verses  inserted  in  the  '  States 
man,'  and  addressed  to  Smelling  Joseph.  The 


90  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

lines  stuck  to  poor  Smelling  for  the  remainder 
of  his  life."  The  pasquinader  himself  after 
wards  went  to  New  York  and  conducted  a  meat- 
axe  publication,  "  The  Censor."  Goodrich  adds, 
that  he  "  fell  into  habits  of  dissipation,  which 
led  from  one  degradation  to  another,  till  his 
miserable  career  was  ended,"  —  a  victim,  no 
doubt,  to  the  angry  muse.  Willis  also  contrived 
to  offend  Mrs.  Lydia  Maria  Child  by  a  satirical 
review  of  her  "  Frugal  Housewife  "  and  by  harp 
ing  on  a  sentence  from  that  authority,  "hard 
ginger-bread  is  nice."  She  took  this  very  much 
to  heart,  and  when  she  afterwards  had  charge 
of  the  literary  department  of  the  "  Traveller  " 
showed  an  abiding  hostility  toward  her  whilom 
critic.  He  early  attained  to  the  dignity  of  par 
ody.  "The  Annoyer"  was  travestied  in  the 
"Amateur  "  and  a  humorous  imitation  of  "Albina 
M'Lush  "  was  also  printed.  Mere  literary  criti 
cism,  however  unfair,  need  not  greatly  disturb 
any  one.  But  Willis  was  subjected,  in  Boston, 
to  personalities  of  a  very  annoying  character. 
He  was  constantly  in  receipt  of  anonymous  let 
ters  calling  him  a  puppy,  a  rake,  etc.  He  was 
attacked  in  the  newspapers  for  his  frivolity,  his 
dandyism,  and  his  conceit.  Private  scandal, 
circulated  by  word  of  mouth,  concerning  his 
debts  and  his  alleged  immoralities,  sometimes 
got  into  print.  It  would  not  be  easy  to  explain 


BOSTON  AND    THE  AMERICAN  MONTHLY.       91 

why  so  kind  a  man  as  Willis,  one  always  so 
eager  to  oblige  and  so  prone  to  say  good-natured 
things  about  everybody,  should  have  excited  so 
much  wrath,  not  only  at  this  time,  but  all 
through  his  life,  by  his  harmless  literary  fopper 
ies  and  foibles,  did  we  not  remember  that  he 
was  successful,  that  he  was  a  favorite  in  society, 
and,  above  all,  that  he  wore  conspicuously  good 
clothes.  There  was  also  something  about  his 
airy  way  of  writing  and  the  personality  it  sug 
gested  that  was  and  is  peculiarly  exasperating 
to  a  certain  class  of  serious-minded  people  who 
resent  all  attempts  to  entertain  them  on  the  part 
of  any  one  whom  they  cannot  entirely  respect. 
Willis  carried  it  off  lightly  enough,  though,  of 
course,  it  must  have  stung  him.  He  knew,  he 
said,  "  how  easy  it  is  to  despise  the  ungentle- 
manly  critic  and  forget  the  poor  wrong  of  his 
criticism." 

In  intervals  of  work  on  the  "American  Month 
ly  "  he  contributed  frequently  to  the  "  Boston 
Statesman,"  having  been  engaged,  together  with 
Lunt  and  Dawes,  to  write  something  for  it  every 
week,  "  short  or  long,  prose  or  verse,"  at  the 
rate  of  five  dollars  an  article,  an  arrangement 
that  lasted  for  some  months.  This  seems  now 
beggarly  pay,  but  Nathaniel  Greene  of  the 
"  Statesman  "  was,  according  to  Willis,  the  only 
editor  in  the  country  who,  as  early  as  1827,  paid 


92  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

anything  at  all  for  verse.  During  these  early 
years  of  journalistic  life  Willis  sojourned  awhile 
in  the  pleasant  land  of  Bohemia.  He  was  a 
member  of  a  supper  club,  which  included  two 
representatives  of  each  profession.  Washington 
Allston  and  Chester  Harding  were  the  artists ; 
Willis  and  Dawes  the  men  of  letters;  Horace 
Mann  and  five  or  six  more  completed  the  tale. 
Willis  was  a  frequent  lounger  in  Harding's  stu 
dio,  and  some  years  after  he  was  delighted  to 
come  across  his  tracks  at  Gordon  and  Dalhousie 
castles,  where  Harding  was  known.  Willis  was 
fond  of  fast  horses,  and  used  to  drive  his  friends 
out  to  Nahant,  for  a  spin  on  the  hard  beach 
along  the  edge  of  the  surf.  This  was  the  scene 
of  "  F.  Smith,"  one  of  his  most  perfect  and 
characteristic  stories.  With  Dawes  and  others 
he  resorted,  not  seldom,  for  a  game  supper,  to 
an  ancient  and  once  somewhat  stately  hostelry, 
known  as  the  "  Stackpole  House,"  where  the 
wines  were  excellent  and  the  landlord  good-hu 
mored  and  disposed  to  trust,  —  the  original, 
doubtless,  of  Gallagher  in  "  The  Female  Ward," 
a  story  written  long  afterwards,  but  whose  inci 
dents  and  descriptions  are  assignable  to  this 
period. 

Willis's  position  in  Boston  was  in  some  re 
spects  a  difficult  one.  His  family  connection 
were  plain,  good  folks,  not  "  in  society,"  —  not, 


BOSTON  AND   THE  AMERICAN  MONTHLY.       93 

at  least,  in  the  literary  society,  which  was  Uni 
tarian,  or  in  the  so-called  aristocratic  society, 
which  was  mainly  either  Unitarian  or  Episco 
palian.  He  himself  was  socially  ambitious,  and 
these  were  the  circles  which  he  wished  to  fre 
quent.  "  The  pale  of  Unitarianism,"  he  wrote, 
u  is  the  limit  of  gentility."  He  was  a  great  fa 
vorite  with  Mrs.  Harrison  Gray  Otis,  the  "  lady 
autocrat "  and  leader  of  the  ton  in  the  Puritan 
capital  for  many  years.  He  was  constantly  at 
her  house  when  she  was  in  town,  and  was  invited 
to  be  one  of  her  party  when  she  went  to  Sara 
toga  in  the  summer.  Nor  was  this  a  passing 
fancy  with  Mrs.  Otis,  but  stood  the  test  of  time 
and  separation.  She  made  him  a  long  visit  at 
Idlewild  during  the  latter  years  of  his  life.  But 
the  Park  Street  Church  people,  among  whom  he 
had  been  brought  up,  looked  askance  upon  his 
fashionable  associations.  The  old  stories  of  his 
college  dissipations  were  revived,  while  rumors 
of  his  Boston  irregularities  reached  the  ears  of 
his  New  Haven  acquaintances.  Willis  himself 
took  no  notice  of  these  slanders,  but  they  were 
warmly  resented  by  his  friends.  His  brother-in- 
law,  Joseph  Jenkins,  wrote  to  Mr.  D.  W.  Whit 
ing  of  New  Haven :  "  Nat  is  a  good  fellow.  He 
is  not  dissipated  in  any  way;  nor  traveling  the 
Tartarean  turnpike,  as  the  good  New  Haven  peo 
ple  suppose.  He  is  attending  to  his  magazine, 


94  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

and  doing  his  duty  as  well  as  any  of  us." 
Though  Willis  did  not  make  the  impression  of 
a  man  of  very  scrupulous  morality,  he  was  cer 
tainly  not  given  to  any  serious  dissipations.  It 
was  not  in  his  temperament  to  run  into  physical 
excesses.  His  senses  were  delicate,  and  he  al 
ways  respected  them.  He  never,  for  example, 
used  tobacco  ;  he  was  never  a  hard  drinker.  In 
youth  he  affected  a  moderate  conviviality  and 
had  an  esthetic  liking  for  champagne.  In  mid 
dle  age  he  was  accustomed  to  mix  a  little  spirit 
with  his  water,  expressing  a  horror  for  the  pure 
element,  on  the  whimsical  ground  that  it  tasted 
of  sinners  ever  since  the  flood.  In  this  Boston 
period,  his  offenses  were  probably  limited  to 
running  up  bills  at  livery  stables  and  inns,  with 
a  too  sanguine  expectation  of  being  able  to  pay 
them  from  the  proceeds  of  his  literary  work. 
Edward  Beecher,  who  had  been  a  tutor  at  Yale 
during  his  college  course,  was  at  this  time  pastor 
of  the  Park  Street  Church.  Finding  himself 
unwilling  to  conform  his  life  to  the  strict  rules 
of  that  society,  Willis  called  on  Mr.  Beecher 
and  stated  the  manner  of  his  supposed  conver 
sion  in  a  revival  at  Andover,  and  the  influences 
that  had  induced  him  to  join  the  church.  He 
said  that  he  was  sincere  in  the  act,  but  was  con 
vinced  afterward  that  he  was  mistaken  in  his 
conviction,  and  that  he  had  not  experienced  the 


BOSTON  AND   THE  AMERICAN  MONTHLY.       95 

change  that  qualified  him  for  church  member 
ship  ;  and  he  requested  Mr.  Beecher  to  obtain 
for  him  an  honorable  dismission.  Mr.  Beecher 
sympathized  with  him  in  his  feelings,  and  made 
an  effort  to  satisfy  his  request,  but  failed,  as 
the  church  then  believed  that  there  were  but 
three  ways  out  of  it,  death,  dismissal  to  another 
church,  or  excommunication.  Accordingly,  at 
a  church  meeting  on  April  29,  1829,  in  which 
Mr.  Beecher  took  no  part,  the  following  sentence 
was  passed :  — 

"  Whereas  certain  charges  have  been  made  against 
Brother  N.  P.  Willis,  which,  in  the  opinion  of  this 
church  has  been  fully  proved,  namely  :  Absence  from 
the  communion  of  this  church  and  attendance  at  the 
theatre  as  a  spectator ;  and  whereas  he  has  neglected 
to  appear  before  the  church  to  answer  the  said 
charges,  although  duly  notified  ;  and  has  not  given  to 
the  church  satisfactory  evidence  of  penitence,  but  has 
evinced  by  a  letter  laid  before  the  church  an  entirely 
different  state  of  feeling ;  therefore  voted,  That  Mr. 
Nathaniel  P.  Willis  be,  and  he  hereby  is,  in  the  name 
and  by  the  authority  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  ex 
communicated  from  this  church." 

Deacon  Willis  was  naturally  grieved  by  this 
turn  of  affairs,  although  he  acquiesced  silently 
in  the  church's  decision.  Theatre  going,  indeed, 
was  an  offense  against  family,  as  well  as  church 
discipline.  Naturally,  also,  the  object  of  this 


96  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILL  IS. 

significavit  always  afterwards  thought  and  spoke 
with  some  bitterness  of  "  the  charity  of  a  sect 
in  religion."  He  never  renounced  definitely  his 
Christian  belief.  He  never  became  skeptical,- 
was  not  at  any  time,  in  fact,  a  thinker  on  such 
themes  and  subject  to  the  speculative  doubts 
which  beset  the  thinker.  He  remained  through 
life  easily  impressible  in  his  religious  emotions. 
"  Worldling  as  I  am,"  he  wrote  many  years  after, 
"  and  hardly  as  I  dare  claim  any  virtue  as  a 
Christian,  there  is  that  within  me  which  sin  and 
folly  never  reached  or  tainted."  But  this  ended 
his  connection  with  organized  Christianity,  and 
he  ceased  for  a  long  time  to  be  a  church-goer. 

His  position  in  Boston  was  also  made  painful 
by  an  unsuccessful  love  affair.  He  had  paid 
court  to  Mary  Benjamin,  a  woman  of  uncommon 
beauty  of  person  and  graces  of  mind  and  char 
acter,  the  sister  of  Park  Benjamin  and  after 
wards  the  wife  of  the  historian  Motley.  She 
returned  his  feeling  and  the  two  were  engaged 
to  be  married,  but  the  engagement  was  broken 
through  the  determined  opposition  of  the  lady's 
guardian,  Mr.  Savage.  Willis  carried  this  thorn 
in  his  side  for  years,  and  it  gave  him  many 
hours  of  bitter  homesickness  while  abroad.  In 
a  letter  written  a  few  days  after  landing  in  Eng 
land,  in  the  summer  of  1834,  he  said :  — 

"  I  loved  Mary  B.,  and  never  think  of  her  without 


BOSTON  AND   THE  AMERICAN  MONTHLY.       97 

emotion ;  but  with  all  the  world  in  France,  Italy,  and 
England  treating  me  like  a  son  or  a  brother,  I  am  not 
coming  home  to  fight  my  way  to  her  through  bitter 
relatives  and  slander  and  opposition.  They  nearly 
crushed  me  once,  and  I  shall  take  care  how  they  get 
another  opportunity.  Still,  after  three  years'  separa 
tion,  I  think  I  never  loved  any  one  so  well,  and  if 
my  way  were  not  so  hedged  up,  it  would  draw  me 
home  now." 

To  Mary  Benjamin  was  addressed  the  lovely 

little  poem,  "  To  M ,  from  Abroad,"  with  its 

motto  from  Metastasio,  — 

"I/alma,  quel  che  non  ha,  sogna  et  figura." 

By  1829  Willis  had  accumulated  verses  enough 
to  fill  another  slender  volume  of  "  Fugitive  Po 
etry."  Of  the  forty-three  pieces  in  this,  the 
"  Dedication  Hymn,"  written  to  be  sung  at  the 
consecration  of  the  Hanover  Street  Church  in 
Boston,  has  the  best  title  to  remembrance.  It 
possesses  a  brief  energy  seldom  attained  by 
Willis.  As  late  as  1856,  his  old  English  friend, 
Dr.  William  Beattie,  wrote  to  him :  "  Your  beau 
tiful  '  Hymn '  was  sung  in  one  of  our  cathedral 
towns,  at  the  consecration  of  a  new  church,  by  an 
overflowing  congregation.  Surely  this  is  a  fact 
worth  noting.  Miss  Eogers  was  the  first  who 
told  me  of  it,  and  often  have  I  repeated  '  The 
perfect  world  by  Adam  trod,'  etc."  "  The  An- 


98  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

noyer"  and  "  Saturday  Afternoon  "  have  been 
already  mentioned.     "  Contemplation  "  — 
"  They  are  all  up,  the  innumerable  stars  "  — 

had  the  feeling,  though  not  the  artistic  touch,  of 
Tennyson's  "  St.  Agnes,"  and  came  near  to  being 
a  fine  poem.  There  were  five  sonnets,  one  of 
them  —  an  acrostic  to  Emily  Marshall  —  with  a 
good  closing  couplet,  — 

"  Life  in  thy  presence  were  a  thing  to  keep, 
Like  a  gay  dreamer  clinging  to  his  sleep." 

"  A  Portrait,"  also,  which  Willis  did  not  repub- 
lish,  contained  an  effective  passage,  beginning 

"  I  go  away  like  one  who  's  heard, 
In  some  fine  scene,  the  prompter's  word,"  etc. 

There  were  two  more  scriptural  pieces,  and  the 
remainder  of  the  book  was  of  no  importance. 
Many  of  its  contents  were  written  before  those 
of  the  earlier  volume  of  "  Sketches." 

The  "  American  Monthly "  proved  a  failure 
financially,  owing,  doubtless,  to  a  lack  of  the 
right  business  management,  for  which  Willis 
had  no  faculty,  and  with  which,  in  truth,  he  had 
nothing  to  do.  At  the  close  of  the  summer  of 
1831  the  magazine  suspended  publication,  and 
its  editor,  shaking  off  the  dust  of  his  feet  against 
the  New  England  metropolis,  fled  to  more  genial 
climes.  He  left  behind  him  the  squibs  of  his 
brother  journalists,  the  cackle  of  the  tea-tables, 


BOSTON  AND   THE  AMERICAN  MONTHLY.       99 

and  some  $ 3,000  of  debts  incurred  through  the 
failure  of  his  enterprise.  He  never  quite  forgave 
Boston.  In  a  letter  to  his  mother  from  Eng 
land,  September  12,  1835,  he  wrote :  — 

"  They  have  denied  me  patronage,  abused  me,  mis 
represented  me,  refused  me  both  character  and  genius, 
and  I  feel  that  I  owe  them  nothing.  I  have  never 
suffered  injustice  except  from  my  countrymen,  and  I 
have  in  every  other  land  found  kindness  and  favor. 
I  would  not  write  this  for  another  human  eye,  but 
you  know  how  unjustly  I  have  been  treated,  and  can 
understand  the  wound  that  rankles  even  in  so  light  a 
heart  as  mine.  The  mines  of  Golconda  would  not 
tempt  me  to  return  and  live  in  Boston." 

The  "  New  York  Mirror "  of  September  10, 
1831,  contained  the  following  item :  "  We  take 
much  pleasure  in  announcing  to  our  readers  that 
the  'American  Monthly  Magazine'  has  been 
united  to  the  '  New  York  Mirror,'  and  that  Na 
thaniel  P.  Willis,  Esq.,  will,  from  this  period,  be 
an  associate  editor  of  the  joint  establishment." 
This  announcement  was  followed  in  the  next 
week's  issue  by  "  A  Card  to  the  Public,"  in  which 
the  new  editor  promises  that,  "  having  transferred 
the  only  literary  undertaking  in  which  he  has 
any  interest  to  the  proprietor  of  the  '  Mirror,' 
his  whole  time  and  attention  will  hereafter  be 
given  to  this  work."  The  "  Mirrors  "  of  Septem 
ber  10th  and  17th  published,  furthermore,  two 


100  NATHANIEL  PARKER    WILLIS. 

letters  from  Saratoga,  written  by  Willis  in  Au 
gust,  and  containing  some  characteristic  verses, 
"  The  String  that  tied  my  Lady's  Shoe,"  and 
"  To ,"  — 

"  'T  is  midnight  deep  :  I  came  but  now 
From  the  bright  air  of  lighted  halls  ;  " 

as  also  a  "  Pencilling  by  the  Way,"  descriptive 
of  Providence  and  Brown  University,  where  he 
had  just  been  delivering  a  Commencement  poem. 
On  September  25th  the  editorial  page  for  the 
first  time  bore  the  heading,  "  Edited  by  George 
P.  Morris,  Theodore  S.  Fay,  and  Nathaniel  P. 
Willis." 

The  journal  with  which  he  had  now  connected 
himself  —  and  with  whose  successors,  under  dif 
ferent  names,  he  continued  to  be  identified  until 
his  death,  thirty-six  years  later  —  was  a  weekly 
paper,  published  on  Saturdays,  and  "devoted 
to  literature  and  the  fine  arts."  It  had  been 
founded  in  1823  by  Samuel  Woodworth,  author 
of  "The  Old  Oaken  Bucket,"  and  General 
George  P.  Morris,  but  Woodworth  had  with 
drawn  some  time  before  Willis  joined  it.  Mor 
ris,  with  whom  Willis  now  began  a  business 
partnership  that  lasted,  with  slight  interruptions, 
for  the  rest  of  their  lives,  and  a  personal  friend 
ship  almost  romantic  in  its  tenderness  and  fidel 
ity,  was  the  most  popular  song  writer  of  his 


BOSTON  AND  THE  AMERICAN  MONTHLY.     101 

generation  in  America,  —  a  sort  of  cis- Atlantic 
Tom  Moore,  whose  songs,  adapted  to  the  piano, 
were  on  all  the  music-racks  in  the  land.  "  Near 
the  Lake  where  droops  the  Willow  "  was  a  uni 
versal  favorite  in  the  days  of  gem-book  min 
strelsy.  "  My  Mother's  Bible  "  was  dear  to  the 
great  heart  of  the  people,  and  the  air  of  "  Wood 
man,  spare  that  Tree  "  was  heard  by  wandering 
Americans  ground  out  from  every  hurdy-gurdy 
in  the  London  streets.  Unless  a  clever  letter 
in  the  "  Mirror  "  of  March  2,  1839,  is  wholly  a 
hoax,  this  last-mentioned  song  compared  in  popu 
larity  with  "Home  Sweet  Home,"  having  suffered 
translation  into  French  ("  Bucheron,  epargne  mon 
arbre"),  German  ("  Haue  nicht  die  alte  Eiche 
nieder  "),  Spanish,  Portuguese,  and  Dutch;  the 
German  version  being  even  introdiiced  by  an 
essay,  "Ueber  Morris's  Entwickelung,  Denken 
und  Wirken."  "  The  Amaranth  "  for  1840,  an 
annual,  edited  by  Nathaniel  Brooks  and  dedi 
cated  to  Morris,  contains  Greek  and  Latin  ren 
derings  of  his  "  Woodman,"  as  well  as  of  Wilde's 
almost  equally  familiar  and  far  better  lyric,  "  My 
Life  is  like  the  Summer  Rose."  Morris  was  a 
bustling,  affable  little  man,  with  a  shrewd,  prac 
tical  side  to  him.  He  was  a  good  business  man 
ager,  and  as  Willis  had  no  talent  in  that  kind,  the 
association  was  mutually  advantageous.  Morris's 
intellectual  stature  was  not  great,  and  Willis, 


102  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

who  loved  the  man,  was  unable  to  admire  the 
poet.  He  praised  his  songs  in  print,  but  there 
was  more  of  friendship  than  critical  sincerity  in 
his  praise.  He  had  been  in  correspondence  with 
Morris  before,  and  had  contributed  occasionally 
to  the  "  Mirror,"  having  sent  it  a  poem  in  com 
petition  for  a  twenty-dollar  prize  when  he  was 
still  in  college.  He  now  began  to  decant  into  its 
columns  a  number  of  his  "  American  Monthly  " 
articles,  a  circumstance  which  not  only  shows 
how  local  the  circulation  of  the  latter  must  have 
been,  but  sheds  a  curious  light  on  the  methods 
of  journalism  at  that  epoch.  The  old  "New 
York  Mirror  "  had  a  reputation  for  brightness 
in  its  time  and  a  circulation  then  considered 
large,  but  as  compared  with  the  great  magazines 
of  to-day  it  seems  a  very  primitive  affair,  with 
its  "  Original  Essays,"  its  "  Popular  Moral 
Tales,"  "  Desultory  Selections,"  and  "  Extracts 
from  an  Unpublished  Tragedy,"  its  poems  "  For 
the  '  Mirror,'  "  by  Isidora  and  lolanthe,  and  its 
solemn  "  Answers  to  Correspondents."  Now  and 
then  there  is  a  contribution  of  more  pronounced 
individuality,  a  poem  by  Halleck,  a  story  by 
Paulding  or  Fay.  Theodore  S.  Fay,  the  other 
editor,  was  a  man  of  parts.  He  was  the  author 
of  several  once  popular  novels,  "  The  Countess 
Ida"  and  "  Hoboken,"  tendenz  romances  against 
dueling,  "  Ulric,"  a  poetical  romance,  and  "  Nor- 


BOSTON  AND   THE  AMERICAN  MONTHLY.    103 

man  Leslie,"  which  was  afterwards  dramatized, 
and  was  founded  on  a  famous  murder  trial  in 
which  Burr  and  Hamilton  had  figured  as  coun 
sel.  Fay  contributed  to  the  "  Mirror  "  satirical 
letters  on  New  York  society,  u  The  Little  Genius," 
and  in  1832  published  a  volume  of  his  "  Mirror  " 
articles  under  the  title  of  "  Dreams  and  Reveries 
of  a  Quiet  Man."  In  1833  he  went  abroad,  and 
his  letters  from  Europe,  "The  Minute  Book," 
appeared  in  the  paper  side  by  side  with  Willis's 
"Pencillings."  He  was  appointed  secretary  of 
legation  at  Berlin  in  1837,  and  minister  resident 
at  Berne  in  1853.  His  novels  have  now  gone 
quite  out  of  sight,  but  many  of  his  short  tales 
are  really  very  clever,  —  written  in  a  rattling 
style,  with  abrupt,  jerky  dialogues,  —  and  may 
be  read  even  now  without  much  effort.  Another 
name  connected  with  the  "  Mirror  "  was  that  of 
William  Cox,  an  English  printer  employed  upon 
the  paper,  whose  "  Crayon  Sketches  by  an  Ama 
teur,"  published  in  1833,  were  highly  commended 
by  Willis.  He,  too,  was  abroad  during  Willis's 
and  Fay's  sojourn  in  Europe,  and  wrote  letters 
from  England  to  the  "  Mirror,"  whose  foreign 
correspondence  was  thus  uncommonly  varied. 
The  first  thought  of  sending  Willis  abroad  oc 
curred  while  the  three  editors  were  supping 
together  at  Sandy  Welsh's  oyster  saloon.  Long 
and  earnestly  they  revolved  the  question  of  ways 


104  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

and  means.  At  length  $500  were  scraped  to 
gether  as  viaticum,  and  it  was  agreed  that  Wil 
lis  was  to  write  weekly  letters  at  ten  dollars  the 
letter.  The  investment  proved  a  good  one  both 
for  the  "Mirror"  and  for  its  traveling  editor. 
With  this  slender  capital  in  his  pocket  he  em 
barked  at  Philadelphia  October  10th,  the  only 
passenger  on  the  merchant  brig  Pacific,  bound 
for  Havre.  He  was  young,  sanguine,  eager  to 
see  life,  but  in  his  most  hopeful  mood  he  could 
hardly  have  foreseen  the  dazzling  experiences  of 
his  next  four  years,  or  the  far-reaching  conse 
quences  which  the  trip  thus  lightly  undertaken 
were  to  have  for  him. 

Before  sailing  he  had  found  time  to  visit  Phil 
adelphia,  Baltimore,  Washington,  and  Mount 
Vernon,  and  make  a  "  Pencilling "  of  them  for 
the  "  Mirror."  Another  letter  gave  his  impres 
sions  of  New  York,  now  become  his  American 
address.  He  had  also  put  to  press  the  poem  de 
livered  before  the  "  Society  of  United  Brothers," 
at  Brown  University,  on  September  6th,  the  day 
before  Commencement,  together  with  a  few  other 
pieces  written  since  1829.  The  dedication  was 
"  To  one  of  whom,  in  this  moment  of  departure 
for  a  foreign  land,  I  think  sadly  and  only  —  to 
my  mother."  The  name-poem  was  one  of  those 
conventional  performances  with  which  unlucky 
recipients  of  invitations  to  "  speak  a  piece  "  be- 


BOSTON  AND  THE  AMERICAN  MONTHLY.     105 

fore  Phi  Beta  Kappas,  United  Brothers,  or  other 
such  academic  bodies,  are  wont  to  dazzle  the 
young  alumni.  It  was  in  blank  verse,  of  course, 
and  dealt  with  the  usual  commonplaces  about 
ambition,  content,  the  beauty  of  human  love,  and 
the  folly  of  skepticism  and  contempt.  It  showed 
more  maturity  than  the  poem  delivered  before 
his  own  Alma  Mater  four  years  before,  but  it 
was  much  the  same  sort  of  thing.  Of  the  re 
maining  contents  of  the  book  two  were  Scripture 
sketches  and  four  were  of  a  more  ambitious  de 
scription  than  Willis  had  previously  attempted. 
These  were  " Parrhasius,"  "The  Dying  Alche 
mist,"  "  The  Scholar  of  Thebet  Ben  Chorat,"  and 
"  The  Wife's  Appeal "  to  her  husband  to  "  awake 
to  fame."  The  theme  of  all  these  and  the  cen 
tral  thought  of  this  whole  volume  is  the  vanity 
of  an  inordinate  thirst  for  knowledge,  power,  or 
fame.  "  Parrhasius,"  the  story  of  an  old  Olyn- 
thian  captive  who  was  tortured  to  death  by  the 
Athenian  painter  that  he  might  catch  the  ex 
pression  of  his  last  agony  for  his  picture  of 
Prometheus,  comes  the  nearest  to  success.  Wil 
lis  had  read  the  tale  in  Burton's  "  Anatomy  of 
Melancholy."  "The  Scholar  of  Thebet  Ben 
Chorat "  was  the  story  of  a  young  Bedouin  who 
grew  mad  and  died  from  too  close  application  to 
astrology,  on  which  science  Willis  seems  to  have 
crammed  up  for  the  nonce,  if  one  may  judge 


106  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

from  the  profusion  of  his  foot-notes.  But  in 
truth  these  poems  were  little  better  than  wax 
work.  The  sweet  and  natural  lines,  "  To  a  City 
Pigeon,"  were  worth  all  the  rest  of  the  book. 


CHAPTEE  IV. 

1831-1834. 

LIFE   ABROAD. 

WHATEVER  may  have  been  the  effect  of  Wil 
lis's  career  in  Europe  upon  his  character,  its 
influence  on  his  literary  fortunes  was  most  pro 
pitious.  Foreign  travel  furnished  just  the  stim 
ulus  that  he  wanted.  As  a  writer  he  was  at  all 
times  very  dependent  on  his  supplies.  If  they 
were  fresh  and  abundant  his  writing  was  corre 
spondingly  so;  if  life  stagnated  with  him  his 
writing  wore  thin.  Place  is  comparatively  in 
different  to  men  of  deep  or  intense  genius,  to  a 
philosopher  like  Emerson  or  a  brooding  idealist 
like  Hawthorne.  They  strike  root  anywhere,  and 
it  is  no  great  matter  from,  what  corner  they  look 
forth  upon  the  world.  The  life  of  the  soul,  the 
life  of  nature,  the  problems  of  the  conscience, 
may  be  studied  in  Concord  or  Salem  as  well  as 
anywhere  else.  A  profound  insight,  a  subtle 
imagination  will  interpret  the  humblest  environ 
ment  into  philosophy  and  poetry.  And  yet  even 


108  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

these  are  not  quite  free  of  their  surroundings. 
To  all  but  sworn  Emersonians  "  English  Traits  " 
is  probably  the  most  intelligible  and  satisfactory 
of  Emerson's  writings.  "  The  Marble  Faun  "  is 
not  Hawthorne's  greatest  romance,  but  there  is 
a  richness  about  it,  a  body,  that  comes  simply 
from  its  material,  and  is  not  to  be  found  in 
"The  Scarlet  Letter"  or  "The  House  of  the 
Seven  Gables." 

As  for  Willis,  his  genius,  such  as  it  was,  was 
frankly  external.  His  bright  fancy  played  over 
the  surface  of  things.  His  curiosity  and  his 
senses  demanded  gratification.  He  needed  stir, 
change,  adventure.  He  was  always  turning  his 
own  experiences  to  account,  and  the  more  crowded 
his  life  was  with  impressions  from  outside,  the 
more  vivid  his  page.  He  had  the  artist's  crav 
ing  for  luxury,  and  was  fond  of  quoting  a  saying 
of  Godwin :  "A  judicious  and  limited  voluptu 
ousness  is  necessary  to  the  cultivation  of  the 
mind,  to  the  polishing  of  the  manners,  to  the 
refining  of  the  sentiment,  and  to  the  develop 
ment  of  the  understanding."  This  taste  for  the 
sumptuous  had  been  starved  in  Willis  at  home. 
Not  only  were  literature  and  society  in  America 
far  more  provincial  then  than  now,  but  life  was 
plainer  in  every  way.  The  rapid  growth  of 
wealth  has  obliterated  the  most  striking  con 
trasts  between  cities  like  New  York  and  Boston, 


LIFE  ABROAD.  109 

on  the  one  hand,  and  cities  like  London  and 
Paris,  on  the  other.  In  every  foreign  capital 
nowadays  one  finds  his  simple  republican  com 
patriots  grumbling  at  the  absence  of  American 
conveniences,  cursing  the  steamboats,  the  rail 
way  carriages,  the  hotels,  the  luggage  system, 
the  portable  baths  and  bed-room  candles,  and 
proclaiming  loudly  that  the  Americans  are  the 
most  luxurious  people  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 
In  Europe,  and  especially  in  England,  circum 
stances  threw  Willis  into  a  new  world.  He 
shared  for  a  time  in  the  life  of  the  titled  aristoc 
racy  and  the  idle  rich,  and  he  took  to  it  like  one 
to  the  manner  born.  He  was  at  home  at  once 
amid  all  that  gay  ease  and  leisure.  The  Lon 
don  clubs,  the  parks,  the  great  country  houses, 
Almack's  and  the  Row,  the  beautiful  haughty 
women,  the  grace,  indolence,  and  refinement, 
hereditary  for  generations,  seemed  no  more  than 
the  birthright  of  this  New  England  printer's 
son,  from  which  some  envious  fairy  had  hitherto 
shut  him  out. 

"  I  have  now  and  then  a  fit  of  low  spirits,"  he  says, 
in  a  letter  from  Marseilles,  April  28,  1832,  "  though 
generally  the  excessive  excitement  of  new  scenes  and 
constant  interest  occupies  me  quite.  It  is  like  an  in 
toxication  to  travel  in  Europe.  I  feel  no  annoyance, 
grumble  at  no  imposition,  am  never  out  of  temper. 
Fatigue  is  the  only  thing  that  bears  me  down.  I 


110  NATHANIEL  PARKER    WILLIS. 

want  leisure  and  money.  I  shall  come  back,  I  think, 
to  America  after  my  engagement  with  Morris  is  over, 
and  marry  and  come  out  again.  As  to  settling  down 
for  these  ten  years,  I  cannot  think  of  it  without  a 
sickness  at  my  heart.  I  wish  to  heaven  I  could  keep 
a  journal  and  publish  after  I  got  home.  This  writ 
ing  and  sending  off  unrevised  is  the  worst  thing  in 
the  world  for  one's  reputation.  However,  I  see  a 
world  of  things  that  I  cannot  put  into  letters,  and  I 
feel  every  day  that  my  mind  is  ripening  and  laying 
up  material  which  I  could  get  nowhere  else.  You 
can  have  no  idea  of  the  stirring,  vivid  habit  one's 
mind  gets  into  abroad.  Living  at  home  forever  would 
never  be  of  half  the  use  to  me." 

Willis  arrived  at  Havre  November  3d,  and 
went  on  by  diligence  to  Paris,  where  he  spent 
between  five  and  six  months.  He  had  taken  out 
with  him  a  number  of  good  letters,  some  from 
Martin  Van  Buren  among  the  rest.  The  Amer 
ican  colony  in  Paris  was  then  small  and  select. 
It  was  under  the  wing  of  Lafayette,  who  was 
very  polite  to  Willis  during  his  stay.  Cooper 
was  there  and  his  protege,  Horatio  Greenough, 
the  sculptor,  who  had  come  from  Florence  to 
execute  a  bust  of  Lafayette.  Morse,  the  artist, 
too,  who,  on  his  return  trip  to  America  in  a 
Havre  packet,  in  the  year  following,  was  to  hit 
upon  his  invention  of  the  electric  telegraph. 
And  lastly,  Willis's  fellow-townsman,  Dr.  Howe, 


LIFE  ABROAD.  Ill 

then  a  zealous  young  philanthropist,  who  had 
won   much   glory   by   his    recent    campaign   in 
Greece,  and  was  now  attending  medical  lectures 
at  the   French   capital.     Willis   took   lodgings 
with   Howe   until   the  latter,  having   been  ap 
pointed  president  of   the  American  committee 
for  the  relief  of  the  Poles,  went  off  on  his  dan 
gerous  mission  of  distributing  supplies  among 
the  insurgent  bands  in  Polish  Prussia,  an  enter 
prise  which  ended  in  his  capture  and  confine 
ment  for  six  weeks  in  a  Prussian  prison.     All 
these  gentlemen  Willis  had  the  good  fortune  to 
meet  in  familiar  and  cordial  intercourse.    Cooper 
asked  him  to  breakfast  with  Morse  and  Howe, 
and  walked  and  talked  with  him  in  the  gardens 
of  the  Tuileries.     The  acquaintance  thus  pleas 
antly  begun  between  the  two  authors  was  after 
wards  renewed  at  home,  though,  from  accidents 
of  geography,  they  never  became  really  intimate. 
Willis    also    made    desirable     acquaintances 
among  the  foreigners  resident  in  Paris.     Morse 
took  him  to  call  upon  Sir  John  Bowring,  editor 
of  the  "  Westminster  Review,"  the  translator  of 
much  of  the  national  poetry  of  the  Russians  and 
Hungarians,  and  afterwards  the  English  gover 
nor  of  Hong  Kong  at  the  time  of  the  Opium 
War.     He  made  acquaintance,  too,  with   Spurz- 
heim,  the  phrenologist,  who   took  a  cast  of  his 
head  ;  with  General  Bertrand,  who  had  been  with 


112  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

Napoleon  at  St.  Helena ;  and  with  the  Countess 
Guiccioli,  who  presented  him  with  a  sonnet  by 
herself,  and  an  autograph  note  from  Shelley. 
The  glamour  of  "  Childe  Harold's  Pilgrimage  " 
was  still  over  Europe,  and  everywhere  the  Amer 
ican  traveler  looked  eagerly  for  his  footprints. 
Mr.  Rives,  the  minister  of  the  United  States  at 
Paris,  was  very  attentive  to  his  young  country 
man,  and  presented  him  to  the  king,  with  two 
other  American  gentlemen,  Mr.  Ritchie  and  Mr. 
Carr.  The  latter  was  American  consul  at  Tan- 
giers.  He  took  a  great  liking  to  Willis,  made 
him  a  number  of  presents,  and  offered  to  appoint 
him  his  secretary,  and  take  him  to  Morocco. 
This  offer  Willis  was  at  first  inclined  to  accept. 
It  was  a  tempting  one  in  many  particulars,  and 
in  a  birthday  letter  to  his  mother,  January  20, 
1832,  he  thus  explained  its  advantages  :  — 

"  Mr.  Carr  takes  me  into  his  family  and  pays  all 
my  expenses.  We  go  to  the  old  palaces  of  the  Aben- 
cerrages,  perhaps  the  most  romantic  country  in  his 
tory,  and  one  very  little  written  about,  and  it  will 
double  the  value  of  my  journey  to  Morris  at  the  same 
time  that  it  secures  me  from  any  reverse  of  fortune. 
He  means  to  spend  his  summers  in  Spain,  which  is 
right  opposite  Tangiers  at  two  hours'  sail,  and  next 
fall  he  will  run  down  to  Italy  and  the  Sicilies,  thus 
giving  me  every  opportunity  I  want.  I  have  letters 
from  Lord  James  Hay  to  his  brother-in-law,  the  gov- 


LIFE  ABROAD.  113 

ernor  of  Gibraltar,  and  one  from  Lord  Fife  to  the 
governor  of  the  Ionian  Islands." 

Why  he  did  not  embrace  this  golden  chance 
remains  uncertain,  though  he  hints  at  a  possible 
difficulty  in  the  fact  that  his  friend,  the  consul, 
was  a  notorious  duelist,  who  had  shot  seven  or 
eight  men  and  had  a  very  pretty  wife.  How 
ever,  before  he  left  Paris,  Mr.  Kives  attached 
him  to  his  own  embassy,  a  courtesy  which  proved 
of  the  greatest  service  to  him.  It  entitled  him 
to  wear  the  uniform  of  a  secretary  of  legation, 
and  the  diplomatic  button  gave  him  the  entree 
to  the  court  circles  of  every  country  he  visited. 

Willis  saw  Paris  at  an  interesting  moment. 
The  Polish  revolution  had  just  failed,  and  the 
city  swarmed  with  refugees.  Louis  Philippe 
was  already  growing  unpopular,  and  there  were 
continual  small  emeutes  on  the  Boulevard  Mont- 
martre,  at  the  Porte  Saint  Denis,  and  in  other 
quarters,  led  by  Polytechnic  students  and  put 
down  without  much  trouble  by  the  troops.  It 
was  a  cholera  year  and  people  were  dying  by  the 
hundreds  daily.  Meanwhile  the  gay  world  went 
on  much  as  ever.  Carnival  was  kept  with  the 
usual  elaborate  follies.  There  were  masked  balls 
at  the  palace.  Malibran  and  Taglioni  were  on 
the  stage.  Paris,  with  its  novelties  and  splen 
dors,  exercised  the  same  fascination  over  Willis 
that  it  exercises  proverbially  over  his  compa- 

8 


114  NATHANIEL- PARKER  WILLIS. 

triots.  He  was  never  tired  of  promenading 
and  sightseeing.  His  lodgings  were  in  the  Rue 
Rivoli,  facing  the  Tuileries.  Sismondi,  the  his 
torian,  had  the  apartment  under  him.  In  a  pri 
vate  letter  he  thus  describes  his  daily  occupa 
tions  :  — 

"  I  have  bought  a  coffee  maker  and  cups,  and  a 
loaf  of  sugar  and  a  pan,  etc.,  etc.,  and  my  hostess's 
daughter,  Christine,  brings  me  my  bread  and  butter, 
and  I  breakfast  gloriously  alone,  the  doctor  (Howe) 
being  always  at  the  hospitals  in  the  morning.  I 
breakfast  and  write  all  along  the  forenoon  till  twelve, 
and  then  see  sights  and  hear  lectures  till  dark,  dine 
at  five  or  six,  and  either  go  to  some  party  in  the  even 
ing,  or  stay  at  home  and  study  with  Zelie." 

He  had  no  fear  of  the  cholera  and  firmly  be 
lieved  that  it  was  not  contagious.  He  was  ad 
vised  that  good  living,  frequent  bathing,  a  cheer 
ful  frame  of  mind,  and  regular  habits  were  the 
best  preventives.  He  even  went  boldly  through 
the  cholera  wards  of  the  Hotel  Dieu,  and  sent  a 
harrowing  description  of  them  to  the  "  Mirror." 
But  towards  spring  the  pestilence  gained  more 
and  more.  The  theatres  were  shut,  all  gayeties 
suspended,  and  thousands  fled  the  city  daily. 
The  upper  classes,  who  had  thus  far  escaped, 
began  to  be  attacked.  The  streets  were  almost 
deserted,  people  went  about  holding  camphor 
bags  to  their  nostrils,  and  the  panic  became  uni- 


LIFE  ABROAD.  115 

versa!.  Finally,  toward  the  middle  of  April, 
while  dancing  at  a  party,  Willis  was  seized  with 
violent  pains  in  the  stomach,  vomiting,  and  chills. 
He  ran  out  of  the  room  to  an  apothecary's,  swal 
lowed  thirty  drops  of  laudanum,  took  a  carriage 
home,  and  a  prescription  of  camphor  and  ether, 
and  went  to  bed.  These  instant  remedies,  he 
had  no  doubt,  were  all  that  saved  him,  and  on 
April  16th  he  started  for  Italy. 

It  is  unnecessary  for  the  biographer  to  follow 
him  step  by  step  in  his  saunterings  through 
Europe.  These  are  fully  recorded  in  his  letters 
to  the  "  Mirror,"  which  covered  a  period  of  four 
years,  the  first  appearing  in  the  issue  of  Febru 
ary  13,  1832,  and  the  last  on  January  14,  1836. 
He  began  them  on  the  voyage  out,  as  soon  as  he 
had  recovered  from  his  first  seasickness,  and  he 
continued  them  until  about  six  months  before 
his  return  home.  The  title  "  Pencillings  by  the 
Way,"  he  had  used  before,  but  he  retained  it 
and  added  the  sub-caption,  "  First  Impressions 
of  Europe."  Both  described  well  the  character 
of  these  letters,  which  were  written  hastily,  often 
on  the  wing,  and  sent  off  in  many  cases  without 
revision,  to  catch  the  next  packet  for  America ; 
in  which,  moreover,  the  writer  aimed  to  "  record 
impressions,  not  statistics."  There  were  one 
hundred  and  thirty-nine  of  them  in  all,  and  they 
were  designed  to  appear  weekly  so  far  as  pos- 


116  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

sible.  But  by  reason  of  irregular  postal  facil 
ities,  they  averaged  less  than  one  a  fortnight, 
and  sometimes  a  month  or  more  elapsed  between 
two  of  them.  They  were  read  with  eagerness 
in  America,  and  Morris  asserted  that  they  were 
copied  into  five  hundred  newspapers.  Their 
popularity  is  explained  in  part  by  the  fact  that 
Europe  was  much  farther  off  from  us  in  those 
days  than  it  is  now.  The  voyage  by  sailing-ves 
sel  was  tedious,  and  few  Americans  went  abroad 
for  pleasure.  Willis,  to  be  sure,  professed  him 
self  astonished  by  the  numbers  of  his  country 
men  whom  he  met  in  Italy  and  elsewhere,  but 
these  were  but  a  handful  compared  with  the  an 
nual  horde  of  tourists  who  rush  back  and  forth 
in  the  steamers,  and  do  Great  Britain  and  the 
continent  in  three  months.  It  is  also  true  that 
the  literature  of  travel  was  not  then  so  abundant. 
The  time  has  gone  by  for  first  impressions  of 
countries.  The  reader  now  demands  a  more 
minute  and  authoritative  study  of  some  single 
corner  of  the  map.  Yet  this  does  not  serve  to 
account  altogether  for  Willis's  success  in  his 
"  Pencillings."  There  were  already  plenty  of 
books  by  American  travelers  in  Europe,  such  as 
they  were,  which  have  long  been  obsolete.  Who 
ever  hears  nowadays  of  James's  "  Travels,"  for 
instance,  published  in  1820 ;  or  of  Austin's  "  Let 
ters  from  London,"  1804  ;  or  of  "  A  Journal  of 


LIFE  ABROAD.  117 

a  Tour  in  Italy  by  an  American,"  1824 ;  to  say 
nothing  of  innumerable  "  Americans  in  Paris," 
and  "Americans  in  London,"  of  later  dates? 
The  truth  is  that  Willis's  rapid  sketches  were 
capital  writing  of  their  kind,  and  the  work  of  a 
born  "  foreign  correspondent."  He  was  a  quick 
and  sympathetic,  though  not  a  subtle  observer, 
had  an  eye  for  effect,  and  a  journalist's  instinct 
for  seizing  the  characteristic  features  of  a  scene 
and  leaving  out  the  lumber.  Few  of  his  letters 
are  in  the  least  guide-bookish.  His  raptures  in 
stated  places  for  admiration,  such  as  galleries, 
palaces,  and  cathedrals,  are  sometimes  conven 
tional,  and  doubtless  his  passing  judgments  on 
famous  works  of  art  are  often  either  at  second 
hand  or  incorrect.  His  education  had  not  pre 
pared  him  to  pronounce  on  these,  and  he  had 
not  the  patience  to  cultivate  a  critical  apprecia 
tion  of  them.  But  in  the  crowd  and  out  of 
doors  —  whither  he  gladly  escapes  —  he  is  always 
happy,  and  there  are  many  pictures,  scattered 
here  and  there  through  these  excellent  letters, 
which  for  sharpness  of  line  and  brightness  of 
color  have  not  been  excelled  either  by  Haw 
thorne,  in  his  "  Note-Books,"  or  by  Bayard  Tay 
lor,  in  his  numerous  views,  afoot  or  otherwise,  or 
by  Henry  James,  in  his  more  penetrating  and 
far  more  carefully  finished  studies. 

Willis  did  not  sit  down  in  Europe,  like  Long- 


118  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

fellow,  and  become  the  interpreter  to  the  New 
World  of  the  Old  World's  romantic  past.  He 
was  never  much  of  a  scholar.  The  literature 
and  legends  of  the  countries  he  traveled  had  lit 
tle  to  give  him,  though  he  possessed  just  enough 
of  the  historic  imagination  for  the  proper  equip 
ment  of  a  picturesque  tourist.  In  general  it  was 
the  present  that  interested  him  :  all  this  stirring 
modern  life,  the  strange  manners  and  dresses, 
the  changing  landscapes,  the  gay  throngs  in  the 
streets,  the  pretty  women  and  notable  men  at 
the  drive  or  the  ball.  Nor  was  his  attitude  that 
of  criticism,  but  rather  of  intense  personal  enjoy 
ment.  He  had  gone  out  ready  to  be  pleased, 
and  he  was  pleased.  He  gave,  in  consequence, 
a  somewhat  rose-colored  view  of  Europe  to  his 
readers  at  home.  Not  that  the  disagreeable 
side  escaped  his  notice,  but  he  was  having  his 
holiday  and  he  gave  a  holiday  account  of  it,  and 
his  engaging  egotism  lent  a  personal  interest  to 
his  descriptions.  The  "  Edinburgh  Keview," 
in  a  just  but  rather  heavy  notice  of  "  Pencil- 
lings,"  complained  of  the  scantiness  of  useful  in 
formation  in  them.  Useful  information  was  a 
thing  which  Willis  eschewed.  He  took  small 
interest  in  politics,  public  institutions,  industrial 
conditions,  etc.  ;  and  he  knew  that  they  would 
bore  nine  out  of  ten  among  his  readers.  He 
lumped  them  jauntily  under  the  head  of  "  sta- 


LIFE  ABROAD.  119 

tistics,"  referred  the  anxious  inquirer  concerning 
them  to  the  cyclopaedias,  acknowledged  with  de 
lightful  candor  that  he  himself  was  an  ornamen 
tal  person,  and  went  on  with  his  sketches  of 
people  and  places.  Yet  u  Pencillings  by  the 
Way"  was  a  book  which  so  solid  a  man  as  Dan- 
jel  Webster  carried  with  him  on  a  journey,  and 
which,  says  his  biographer,  "  he  read  attentively 
.find  praised.  He  said  the  letters  were  both  in 
structive  and  amusing  and  evinced  great  talents 
on  the  part  of  the  author."  They  inspired  the 
young  Bayard  Taylor  with  his  first  longing  to 
gravel.  Thousands  of  Americans  have  taken 
their  impressions  of  Europe  from  them  ;  and  in 
spite  of  all  that  has  since  been  written  by  more 
leisurely  and  better  instructed  observers,  they 
retain  their  freshness  wonderfully,  and  present 
to  the  reader  of  to-day  vivid  glimpses  of  the  out 
side  of  European  life,  at  a  time  when  steam  had 
not  yet  made  the  byways  of  all  countries  acces 
sible. 

Willis  spent  the  summer  and  autumn  of 
1832  in  the  north  of  Italy,  making  Florence 
his  headquarters.  Dr.  Bowring  had  given  him 
in  Paris  a  letter  to  Count  Porro  at  Marseilles. 
The  latter  had  been  with  Byron  in  Greece, 
where  Count  Gamba,  the  Guiccioli's  brother, 
was  of  his  corps  and  served  under  him.  He 
gave  Willis  letters  to  "  half  the  rank  of  Italy : " 


120  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

among  others,  to  the  Marquis  Borromeo,  who 
owned  the  "  Isola  Bella "  in  Lake  Maggiore. 
Porro  assured  Willis  that  Borromeo  would 
give  him  the  use  of  one  of  his  palazzos,  "  as 
he  has  five  or  six  and  is  happy  when  people 
he  knows  occupy  his  servants."  The  nominal 
position  of  attach^  to  the  American  legation 
at  Paris  obtained  for  him  a  private  presen 
tation  to  the  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany,  and  an 
invitation  to  the  ducal  balls  and  the  recep 
tions  at  the  Casino,  both  of  which  were  given 
weekly.  The  Florentines  did  not  entertain 
much  at  their  houses,  but  the  foreign  residents 
did,  and  especially  the  English.  Willis  was 
dined  by  Jerome  Bonaparte,  the  ex-King  of 
Westphalia,  who  was  living  at  the  Tuscan  cap 
ital  with  the  title  of  Prince  Montfort,  and  giv 
ing  very  exclusive  parties.  He  resorted  to  the 
Saturday  soirees  of  Prince  Poniatowski,  who 
professed  love  for  Americans,  and  whose  august 
name  was  afterwards  borne  by  the  favorite  pony 
of  the  Willis  children  at  Idle  wild.  In  short,  he 
was  freely  admitted  to  Florentine  society  and 
took  part  in  its  fashionable  intrigues  and  dissi 
pations.  He  secured  lodgings  in  Florence  in  the 
same  palazzo  with  Greenough,  in  the  apartment 
just  vacated  by  Cole,  the  American  landscape 
painter.  Through  Greenough  he  saw  a  great 
deal  of  artist  life  in  Italy.  At  Rome  Green- 


LIFE  ABROAD.  121 

ough  subsequently  introduced  him  to  Gibson, 
the  English  sculptor,  who  presented  him  with  a 
cast  of  his  bas-relief,  Cupid  and  Psyche.  Un 
der  the  guidance  of  the  two,  Willis  amused 
himself  by  trying  his  hand,  in  an  amateurish 
fashion,  at  moulding  in  clay.  He  was  flattered 
by  their  assurances  that  he  had  a  good  touch, 
and  felt  half  inclined,  for  a  moment,  to  ex 
change  his  dilettantish  pursuit  of  letters  for  an 
equally  dilettantish  pursuit  of  art.  His  dreams 
of  the  possibilities  of  such  a  career  took  shape 
long  after  in  the  novel  of  "  Paul  Fane."  Green- 
ough  had  moulded  a  bust  of  Willis  at  Florence, 
and  some  years  after  he  cut  it  in  marble  and 
gave  it  to  him.  There  is  a  story  about  this 
which  is  authentic,  and  too  pretty  to  leave  un 
told.  Mr.  Joseph  Grinnell  of  New  Bedford 
happened  to  be  in  Florence  in  the  spring  of 
1830  and  had  employed  Greenough  to  make 
him  a  statue  of  his  niece  Cornelia,  —  then  a 
child  of  five  years,  —  who  became  in  time  Wil 
lis's  second  wife.  It  was  from  a  remnant  of 
the  same  block  used  for  her  statue  that  the 
sculptor,  unconscious  of  the  omen,  afterwards 
carved  the  bust  of  her  future  husband.  The 
two  fragments  thus  strangely  reunited  stand 
now  in  the  same  drawing-room,  the  head  of 
the  youthful  poet,  with  its  Hyperion  curls, 
and  the  full-length  figure  of  the  demure  little 


122  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

Quaker  maiden,  holding  in  one  hand  a  drinking- 
cup  and  in  the  other  a  bird.  From  this  portrait- 
bust  of  Willis  is  taken  the  engraving  by  Hal- 
pin  in  the  illustrated  edition  of  Willis's  poems 
published  by  Clark,  Austin  &  Smith,  1859.  It 
was  a  fair  likeness,  but  somewhat  heavy  and 
unideal.  Its  original  had  grown  quite  fat 
abroad.  His  inherited  tendency  to  embonpoint 
was  counteracted  in  later  life  by  the  emaciation 
of  long  illness.  Even  as  a  young  man  his 
height  gave  him  a  look  of  slenderness,  though 
his  face  was  full.  The  "Autocrat,"  apropos 
of  dandies  whose  jaws  could  not  fill  out  their 
collars,  affirms  that  "  Willis  touched  this  last 
point  in  one  of  his  earlier  ambrotypes." 

August  found  him  at  the  Baths  of  Lucca, 
"  The  Saratoga  of  Italy,"  flirting,  and  recuper 
ating  from  the  exhausting  effects  of  an  Italian 
summer.  In  a  private  letter  dated  on  the  20th, 
he  announces  his  intention  of  starting  for  Eng 
land  to-morrow  by  way  of  Switzerland  and  the 
Rhine,  returning  to  Italy  in  a  few  months  in 
time  for  the  Roman  season. 

"In  London  I  mean  to  make  arrangements  with 
the  magazines,  and  then  live  abroad  altogether.  It 
costs  so  little  here  and  one  lives  so  luxuriously  too, 
and  there  is  so  much  to  fill  one's  mind  and  eye,  that 
I  think  of  returning  to  naked  America  with  daily 
increasing  repugnance.  I  love  my  country,  but  the 


LIFE  ABROAD.  123 

ornamental  is  my  vocation,  and  of  this  she  has  none. 
I  shall  pass  the  next  summer,  perhaps,  in  Germany  at 
a  university,  and  I  mean  to  learn  German  thoroughly. 
You  would  be  astonished  at  the  facility  of  learning  a 
language  in  the  country.  I  speak  French  well  and 
Italian  passably,  and  you  know  how  little  I  knew  and 
how  short  a  time  I  have  been  abroad." 

This  programme  was  altered  for  some  reason. 
Instead  of  starting  for  England,  he  made  a 
second  visit  to  Venice,  then  returned  to  Flor 
ence,  and  when  the  autumn  was  far  enough 
advanced  to  make  it  safe  went  on  to  Kome.  In 
the  letter  just  quoted  he  mentions  that  he  has 
made  the  acquaintance  of  a  young  Mr.  Noel,  a 
cousin  of  Byron. 

The  winter  of  1832-33  and  the  spring  of  1833 
were  spent  between  Florence.  Rome,  and  Naples. 

Wherever  he  traveled  he  made  friends.  He 
was  not  without  a  title  to  his  secretary's  but 
ton,  for  his  whole  progress  through  Europe  was 
a  ticklish  feat  of  diplomacy.  Few  of  the  peo 
ple  whom  he  met  in  society  suspected  what 
thin  ice  he  was  skating  on,  or  dreamed  for  an 
instant  that  the  dashing  young  attach^  was  de 
pendent  for  his  bread  and  butter  on  weekly 
letters  to  a  newspaper.  The  failure  of  re 
mittances  from  Morris  sometimes  put  him  in 
an  awkward  predicament,  but  he  always  man 
aged  to  find  a  way  out.  In  one  of  the  letters 


124  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

which  he  made  it  a  religion  to  write  his  mother 
on  each  recurring  birthday  —  this  one  dated  at 
Florence,  January  20,  1833  —  he  relates  some 
of  his  experiences  of  the  kind :  — 

"  I  have  dined  with  a  prince  one  day  and  alone 
for  a  shilling  in  a  cook-shop  the  next.  I  have  twice 
been  entirely  destitute  of  money  in  places  where  I 
had  not  an  acquaintance,  and  the  instant  before  the 
last  coin  was  out  of  my  pocket,  chances  too  improb 
able  for  a  dream  have  provided  for  me.  One  was 
at  Marseilles.  I  had  relied  on  receiving  a  letter  of 
credit  when  I  got  there.  I  was  disappointed  and 
was  at  the  hotel  a  week,  wondering  whether  I  should 
find  fate  working  its  usual  miracle  for  me.  I  had 
only  two  francs  remaining,  when  a  gentlemanly  man, 
who  had  commenced  conversation  with  me  at  table, 
asked  me  to  his  room  and  ended  with  offering  me  a 
seat  in  his  carriage  to  Nice.  The  quarantine  drove 
him  back,  but  he  had  brought  me  two  hundred  miles 
on  my  route,  and  knowing  my  disappointment  by  my 
inquiries  at  the  post  office,  he  offered  me  the  use  of 
his  banker  to  any  amount  and  took  drafts  for  the 
money  on  my  partner  in  New  York.  This  now  is  a 
thing  that  does  not  occur  once  in  a  century.  I  have 
corresponded  with  Doyne  (that  was  his  name)  ever 
since.  I  find  that  he  is  a  religious  man,  and  from  one 
of  the  first  families  in  Dublin." 

With  all  his  taste  for  luxury,  Willis  knew  how 
to  make  economies,  and  living  was  much  cheaper 
then.  He  never  affected  a  mystery,  and  in  one 


LIFE  ABROAD.  125 

of  his  letters  to  the  "  Mirror "  he  explained 
how  it  was  that  he  could  live  in  Florence  on 
three  hundred  dollars  a  year  "  exclusive  of  post 
age  and  pleasure,"  paying  four  dollars  a  month 
for  his  apartment  and  attendance,  breakfasting 
for  six  cents,  and  dining  "  quite  magnificently  " 
for  twenty-five.  Meanwhile  a  deal  of  gossip 
about  him  was  in  circulation  in  America,  and 
the  editor  of  the  "  Mirror  "  had  to  contradict, 
inter  alia,  a  rumor  that  his  foreign  collaborator 
had  married  the  widow  of  a  British  nobleman 
and  was  faring  sumptuously  in  Eome. 

Having  been  invited  by  the  officers  of  the 
frigate  United  States  to  join  them  in  a  six 
months'  cruise  up  the  Mediterranean,  he  re 
paired  to  Leghorn,  from  which  port  the  United 
States,  with  her  consort  the  Constellation,  set 
sail  on  the  3d  of  June,  1833.  Commodore 
Patterson  of  Baltimore  commanded  the  former 
ship  and  Captain  Reed  of  Philadelphia  the  lat 
ter.  Both  gentlemen  were  accompanied  by  their 
wives  and  the  commodore  by  his  three  beau 
tiful  daughters.  These  were  all  old  friends  of 
Willis,  and  he  had  made  acquaintance  with  the 
other  officers  of  the  squadron  in  Italy.  He 
could  not  have  seen  the  East  under  pleasanter 
auspices,  and  the  next  half  year  was  the  richest 
in  literary  fruit  of  his  entire  sojourn  upon  the 
continent.  The  squadron  loitered  along  like  a 


126  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

pair  of  pleasure  yachts,  touching  at  all  the 
more  interesting  ports.  The  bright  shores  of 
the  Mediterranean  and  the  Levant  passed  in  a 
magic  panorama  before  the  eyes  of  the  pas 
sengers,  who  sailed  and  danced  and  ate  the  lotus 
day  after  day.  Elba,  Naples,  and  Sicily ;  Trieste 
and  Vienna ;  the  Ionian  Islands,  Greece,  and  the 
shores  of  the  Dardanelles  were  visited  in  turn, 
and  at  length  in  October  the  frigate  dropped 
anchor  in  the  Golden  Horn.  Willis's  "  Pencil- 
lings  "  of  Constantinople  are  among  the  best  in 
his  portfolio,  among  the  best,  indeed,  that  have 
ever  been  made  of  the  surface  of  Oriental  life. 
Italy  was  hackneyed  :  the  Rialto  and  Saint 
Mark's,  the  Coliseum  and  the  Vatican,  Pompeii 
and  the  Bay  of  Naples,  had  been  described  a 
thousand  times.  But  here  he  was  off  the  track 
of  common  tourists.  His  nature  reveled  in  the 
barbaric  riches  of  the  East  and  cheerfully 
blinked  the  discomforts  and  the  dirt.  The  mys 
teries  of  the  seraglio  and  the  slave  market  and 
the  veiled  women  in  the  bazaars  piqued  his 
curiosity,  and  the  poetry  of  the  Turkish  ceme 
teries  and  mosques  appealed  to  his  sentiment. 
He  was  never  weary  of  wandering  through  the 
grand  bazaar.  "  I  have  idled  up  and  down  in  the 
dim  light  and  fingered  the  soft  henna,  and 
bought  small  parcels  of  incense  wood  for  my 
pastille  lamp,  studying  the  remarkable  faces  of 


LIFE  ABROAD.  127 

the  unconscious  old  Mussulmans,  till  my  mind 
became  somehow  tinctured  of  the  East,  and  my 
clothes  steeped  in  the  mixed  and  agreeable 
odors  of  its  thousand  spices."  Willis  was  a 
born  shopper  and  had  a  feminine  eye  for  the 
niceties  not  only  of  costume,  but  of  upholstery, 
pottery,  and  all  kinds  of  purchasable  knick- 
knacks.  He  relished  a  fine  appeal  to  his  senses 
and  his  fancy  all  in  one.  So  he  liked  to  go 
through  the  street  of  the  confectioners  and 
taste  the  queer  sweetmeats  with  flowery  names, 
"peace  to  your  throat  "  and  "lumps  of  delight," 
and  to  inventory  the  merchants'  stock  in  trade, 
their  gilded  saucers,  brass  spoons,  and  vases  of 
rose  water.  He  liked  the  opium-eating  drug 
gists,  smoking  their  narghiles  and  fingering 
their  spice  wood  beads,  the  edges  of  their  jars 
"  turned  over  with  rich  colored  papers  (a  pecul 
iar  color  to  every  drug),  and  broad  spoons  of 
box- wood  crossed  on  the  top."  He  delighted  to 
cheapen  amber  and  embroidered  slippers  in  the 
Bezestein,  and  best  of  all  to  lounge  on  the 
cushioned  divan,  taking  sherbet  and  aromatic 
coffee  and  bargaining  for  attar  of  roses  in  the 
octagonal  shop  of  Mustapha,  the  perfumer  to 
the  Sultan,  whom  he  has  introduced  as  a  deus 
ex  machina  into  his  story,  "  The  Gypsy  of  Sar- 
dis."  In  the  "  Letters  from  under  a  Bridge," 
he  affirms,  whether  seriously  or  not  I  cannot  say. 


128  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS, 

that  the  English  artist  Bartlett,  who  was  his  col- 
loborator  in  "  American  Scenery,"  encountered 
old  Mustapha  in  Constantinople,  and  that  the 
latter  showed  him  Willis's  card  "stained  to  a 
deep  orange  with  the  fingering  of  his  fat  hand, 
unctuous  from  bath  hour  to  bath  hour  with  the 
precious  oils  he  traffics  in."  He  questioned 
Bartlett  about  America,  "  a  country  which  to 
Mustapha' s  fancy  is  as  far  beyond  the  moon  as 
the  moon  is  beyond  the  gilt  tip  of  the  serag 
lio,"  and  finally  gave  him  a  jar  of  attar  of  jas 
mine  to  send  to  Willis.  "  The  small  gilt  bottle, 
with  its  cubical  edge  and  cap  of  parchment,  lies 
breathing  before  me."  Then  there  was  the  street 
of  the  booksellers,  where  "  the  small  brown  reed 
stood  in  every  clotted  inkstand,"  and  the  bearded 
old  Armenian  bookworm,  interrupted  in  eating 
rice  from  a  wooden  bowl,  took  down  an  illumi 
nated  Hafiz,  "and  opening  it  with  a  careful 
thumb,  read  a  line  in  mellifluous  Persian."  Wil 
lis  also  struck  up  an  acquaintance  with  Dr.  Mil- 
lingen,  the  Sultan's  physician,  who  had  attended 
Byron  in  his  last  illness.  He  spent  two  days 
with  him,  by  invitation,  at  his  house  on  the  Bos- 
phorus,  and  picked  up  a  smattering  of  Romaic 
from  Mrs.  Millingen,  who  was  a  Greek. 

After  five  weeks  at  Constantinople,  the  frigate 
weighed  anchor  for  Smyrna.  There  he  found 
an  old  schoolmate,  Octavus  Langdon,  a  Smyr- 


LIFE  ABROAD.  129 

niote  merchant,  who  entertained  him  very  hos 
pitably,  and  invited  him  to  join  a  party  for  a 
few  days'  tour  in  Asia  Minor.  The  party  con 
sisted  of  Willis  and  his  host,  an  American  mis 
sionary  named  Brewer,  and  two  other  gentlemen, 
and  their  adventures  included  a  night  in  a  real 
Oriental  khan  at  Magnesia,  and  a  visit  to  the 
site  of  ancient  Sardis.  A  beautiful  girl,  of 
whom  Willis  caught  a  glimpse,  through  a  tent 
door,  in  a  gypsy  encampment  on  the  plain  of 
Hadjilar,  was  the  original  of  his  "  Gypsy  of 
Sardis."  At  Smyrna  he  said  good-by  to  Com 
modore  Patterson  and  his  other  friends  on  the 
United  States ;  and  the  ship  which  had  been  his 
home  for  more  than  six  months  sailed  away  to 
winter  at  Minorca,  leaving  him  "  waiting  for  a 
vessel  to  go  —  I  care  not  where.  I  rather  lean 
toward  Palestine  and  Egypt,  but  there  are  no 
vessels  for  Jaffa  or  Alexandria." 

By  this  time  Willis's  literary  reputation  had 
penetrated  to  the  London  press,  though  not  as  yet 
to  the  London  public,  possibly  through  scattered 
copies  of  his  "  Mirror  "  letters  ;  and  while  stay 
ing  at  Smyrna  he  received  "an  offer  of  a  thou 
sand  dollars  a  year  to  write  for  the  London 
'  Morning  Herald.'  But  the  articles  were  to  be 
political,  and  that  I  had  modesty  enough  to 
think  beyond  my  calibre.  I  was  to  live  abroad, 
however,  and  go  wherever  there  was  a  war  or 


130  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

the  prospect  of  one.  I  would  much  rather  write 
about  pictures  and  green  fields."  The  not  un 
pleasant  hesitation  as  to  his  next  move  was 
ended  at  last  by  the  departure  from  Smyrna  of 
the  Yankee  brig  Metamora,  bound  for  his  native 
Portland  with  a  cargo  of  figs  and  opium.  The 
skipper,  a  Down-Easter,  agreed  to  take  him  as  a 
passenger,  and  land  him  at  Malta.  At  Malta, 
accordingly,  he  arrived  late  in  December,  after 
being  nearly  shipwrecked  in  a  Levanter,  and 
was  put  ashore  through  a  heavy  sea  in  the  brig's 
long  boat,  narrowly  escaping  being  carried  all 
the  way  to  America.  The  letter  to  the  "  Mirror  " 
in  which  this  part  of  his  travels  was  recorded 
was  lost,  and  the  "  Pencillings "  leap  at  once 
from  Smyrna  to  Milan.  He  afterwards  rewrote 
the  episode,  turning  it  into  a  capital  story  ("  A 
Lost  Letter  Rewritten,"  in  the  "Mirror"  for 
May  14  and  June  11,  1836),  which  figures  in 
his  collected  writings  as  "  A  Log  in  the  Archi 
pelago."  The  startling  conjunction  of  East  and 
Down  East  on  board  the  Metamora  suggested, 
no  doubt,  some  of  the  incidents  in  "  The  Widow 
by  Brevet,"  a  tale  which  moves  between  the 
poles  of  Constantinople  and  Salem,  Massachu 
setts. 

From  Malta  he  made  his  way  via  Italy,  Switz 
erland,  and  France  to  England,  arriving  at 
Dover  on  the  1st  of  June,  1834. 


LIFE  ABROAD.  131 

While  at  Florence,  Willis  had  been  introduced 
by  Greenough  to  Walter  Savage  Landor,  who 
was  then  living  in  his  villa  at  Fiesole.  Landor 
entertained  him  hospitably,  and,  at  parting, 
made  him  a  present  of  a  Cuyp,  for  which  Willis 
had  expressed  admiration,  and  gave  him  some 
valuable  letters  to  people  in  England.  One  of 
these  was  to  the  Countess  of  Blessington,  and 
with  it  Landor  intrusted  to  his  American  guest 
the  manuscript  of  his  "  Citation  and  Examina 
tion  of  William  Shakespeare,"  for  delivery  to  the 
same  lady,  under  whose  superintendence  it  was 
duly  published  the  following  autumn.  He  also 
put  into  his  hands  a  package  whose  temporary 
disappearance  was  the  cause  of  some  blame  at 
taching  to  Willis.  Landor's  own  story  of  the 
transaction,  told  in  an  addendum  to  the  first 
edition  of  "  Pericles  and  Aspasia,"  is  as  fol 
lows  :  — 

"  At  this  time  an  American  traveler  passed  through 
Tuscany  and  favored  me  with  a  visit  at  my  country 
seat.  He  expressed  a  wish  to  reprint  in  America  a 
large  selection  of  my  *  Imaginary  Conversations/ 
omitting  the  political.  He  assured  me  they  were  the 
most  thumbed  books  on  his  table.  With  a  smile  at  so 
energetic  an  expression  of  perhaps  an  undesirable 
distinction,  I  offered  him  unreservedly  and  uncon 
ditionally  my  only  copy  of  the  five  printed  volumes, 
interlined  and  interleaved  in  most  places,  together 


182  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

with  my  MS.  of  the  sixth,  unpublished.  He  wrote  to 
me  on  his  arrival  in  England,  telling  me  that  they 
were  already  on  their  voyage  to  their  destination." 

It  seems  from  Willis's  public  explanation  in 
"  Letters  from  under  a  Bridge,"  that  he  received 
the  volumes,  which  were  in  a  dilapidated  con 
dition,  at  the  moment  of  starting,  and  not  know 
ing  how  to  add  them  to  his  baggage  he  —  rather 
carelessly,  perhaps  —  "  sent  them  with  a  note  to 
Theodore  Fay,  who  was  then  in  Florence,  re 
questing  him  to  forward  them  to  America  by 
ship  from  Leghorn."  Fay  accordingly  committed 
them  to  a  Mr.  Miles,  an  American  straw-bonnet- 
maker,  who  did  send  them  to  New  York,  where 
Willis  expected  to  follow  in  the  course  of  the 
summer  and  take  charge  of  them.  Instead  of 
doing  this,  he  spent  the  next  two  years  in  Eng 
land,  and  meanwhile  wrote  to  Landor  that  the 
package  had  been  left  with  Miles,  to  forward  it 
to  America.  Landor  "  called  in  consequence  at 
the  shop  of  this  person,  who  denied  any  knowl 
edge  of  the  books."  These,  however,  after  a 
brief  stay  in  New  York,  were  consigned  to  Wil 
lis  at  London,  "  and  Fay  and  Mr.  Landor  both 
happening  there  together,  the  explanation  was 
made,  and  the  books  and  manuscripts  restored 
unharmed  to  the  author,"  but  not  in  time  to  keep 
Willis  from  going  down  "  to  posterity  astride 
the  finis  of  '  Pericles  and  Aspasia.'  I  trust,"  he 


LIFE  ABROAD.  133 

continues,  "  that  his  [Lander's]  biographer  will 
either  let  me  slip  off  at  Lethe's  wharf,  by  expur 
gating  the  book  of  me,  or  do  me  justice  in  a 
note."  In  spite  of  which  trust  the  biographers 
have  been  a  little  hard  on  Willis  in  the  mat 
ter.  Sidney  Colvin,  heartened,  probably,  by  the 
"  Quarterly's  "  onslaught,  denounces  him  as  "  that 
most  assiduous  of  flatterers  and  least  delicate  of 
gossips,"  and  says  that  he  gave  Landor  occasion 
to  repent  of  his  hospitality  by  consigning  his 
books  to  America  and  then  basely  lingering  on 
in  England  "in  obsequious  enjoyment  of  the 
great  company  among  whom  he  found  himself 
invited :  "  while  Forster,  after  declaring  that 
Willis's  "  fuss  and  fury  of  boundless  hero-wor 
ship  found  in  Landor  an  easy  victim,"  adds  that 
"Landor  will  perhaps  be  thought  not  without 
excuse  for  the  way  in  which  he  always  after 
wards  spoke  of  Mr.  N.  P.  Willis."  But  what 
ever  inconvenience  the  latter  may  have  caused 
in  this  business,  he  certainly  made  the  amende 
honorable  in  the  letter  to  Landor  from  which 
Mr.  Forster  quotes  :  — 

"  I  have  to  beg,"  he  writes,  "  that  you  will  lay  to 
the  charge  of  England  a  part  of  the  annoyance  you 
will  feel  about  your  books  and  manuscripts.  I  was 
never  more  flattered  by  a  commission  and  I  have  never 
fulfilled  one  so  ill.  They  went  to  America  via  Leg 
horn,  and  I  expected  fully  to  have  arrived  in  New 
York  a  month  or  two  after  them." 


134  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

Landor  was  a  man  of  noble  courtesy  and  most 
generous  nature,  although,  to  put  it  mildly,  often 
unreasonable.  The  delay  and  uncertainty  about 
his  precious  manuscripts  were  certainly  vexatious 
and  may,  very  likely,  as  his  biographer  implies, 
have  influenced  "  the  way  in  which  he  always 
afterwards  spoke  "  of  the  man  who,  innocently 
enough,  made  him  the  trouble.  But  up  to  the 
time  of  this  little  misunderstanding,  his  feelings 
toward  Willis,  as  expressed  in  their  correspond 
ence,  were  exceedingly  cordial ;  as  will  sufficient 
ly  appear  from  the  following  letter,  undated,  but 
written,  probably,  during  the  winter  of  1834- 
35:  — 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  By  a  singular  and  strange  co 
incidence,  I  wrote  this  morning  and  put  into  the  post 
office  a  letter  directed  to  you  at  New  York.  And 
now  comes  Mr.  Macquay,  bringing  me  one  from  you, 
delightful  in  all  respects.  I  know  not  any  man  in 
whose  fame  and  fortunes  I  feel  a  deeper  interest  than 
in  yours.  Pardon  me  if  I  am  writing  all  this  illegi 
bly  in  some  degree,  for  certainly  I  shall  scarcely  be 
in  time  for  the  post  with  all  the  agility  both  of  hand 
and  legs.  For  I  am  resolved  to  transcribe  an  ode  to 
your  President  in  spite  of  the  resistance  his  [MS. 
illegible]  has  met  with,  —  indeed,  the  more  am  I  re 
solved  for  this  very  reason.  I  envy  you  the  even 
ings  you  pass  with  the  most  accomplished  and  grace 
ful  of  all  our  fashionable  world,  my  excellent  friend, 
Lady  Blessington.  Do  not  believe  that  I  have  writ- 


LIFE  ABROAD.  135 

ten  any  paper  in  the  magazine.  Whatever  I  write  I 
submit  to  Lady  B.  My  "Examination  of  Shake 
speare  "  I  published  for  a  particular  and  private  pur 
pose,  which,  however,  it  has  not  answered.  I  should 
not  be  surprised  if  it  procured  me  a  hundred  pounds 
or  more  within  seven  years.  Had  I  known  of  your 
being  in  England  I  should  have  ordered  a  copy  to 
have  been  sent  to  you.  Pray  tell  Lady  Blessington  I 
have  at  last  received  her  Byron  from  Colonel  Hughes. 
It  came  a  week  ago.  I  think  better  of  him  than  I 
did,  and  thank  her  for  it.  Nevertheless,  I  suspect 
she  has  given  him  powers  of  ratiocination  which  he 
never  attained.  I  must  now  try  to  recollect  my  verses. 
So  adieu,  and  believe  me, 

Ever  yours  most  sincerely, 

W.  S.  LANDOR. 
Pray  write  to  me  when  you  find  time. 

The  verses  accompanying  this  letter  were  the 
rough  draft  of  the  ode  "  To  Andrew  Jackson," 
numbered  CCLXXXVIII.  in  Landor's  miscellane 
ous  poems.  On  his  side  Willis  could  not  thank 
Landor  enough  for  his  introduction  to  Lady 
Blessington.  "  She  is  my  lode  star  and  most 
valued  friend,"  he  writes,  "  for  whose  acquaint 
ance  I  am  so  much  indebted  to  you  that  you 
will  find  it  difficult  in  your  lifetime  to  diminish 
my  obligations." 

In  England  Willis  fell  at  once  upon  his  feet. 
While  traveling  on  the  Continent,  his  intimacies 
had  been  principally  among  Englishmen  and 


136  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

Americans,  and  though  well  received  in  the  na 
tive  society  of  Florence  by  virtue  of  his  diplo 
matic  credentials,  he  had  remained,  after  all,  a 
stranger  and  a  looker-on.  A  foreign  language 
imperfectly  learned  is  a  barrier  to  complete  in 
tercourse  even  in  the  most  cosmopolitan  society. 
In  France  and  Italy  he  had  made  acquaintances ; 
in  England  he  made  friends  and  formed  do 
mestic  ties  which  bound  him  to  the  country  as 
long  as  he  lived.  He  did  not  fancy  the  French 
and  Italians,  though  he  found  their  cities  inter 
esting  to  visit ;  but  he  liked  the  English  and 
they  treated  him  well.  No  American  author  ex 
cept  Irving  and  Cooper  had  received  from  them 
a  tithe  of  the  attentions  which  they  accorded  to 
Willis ;  and  Cooper,  though  personally  well 
liked,  had  offended  British  prejudices  by  his 
pugnacious  writings  and  was  more  popular  in 
Paris  than  in  London.  The  next  two  years  of 
Willis's  life  were  perhaps  the  acme  of  his  social 
and  literary  career,  and  he  always  looked  back 
to  them  as  the  brightest  spot  in  his  memory. 
The  experience  was  not  altogether  healthy  for 
him,  though  it  was  stimulating  at  the  time.  He 
was  not  spoiled  by  success,  but  he  was  naturally 
a  little  intoxicated  by  it,  and  a  little  dazzled  by 
the  courtly  splendors  of  the  circles  to  which  he 
was  now  admitted.  When  he  went  back  to 
America,  he  did  so  reluctantly,  and  with  the 


LIFE  ABROAD.  137 

hope  of  returning  soon  to  make  his  home  in 
England.  He  found  the  change  to  the  plainer 
conditions  of  American  life  a  chilling  one,  and 
he  had  acquired  habits  and  standards  which  did 
not  fit  in  easily  with  the  requirements  of  a  jour 
nalist's  career  in  a  new  country. 

As  soon  as  he  reached  Dover  he  began  to  have 
that  feeling  of  being  at  home  once  more  which 
is  familiar  to  American  travelers  who  make  their 
first  entrance  to  England  by  way  of  the  Chan 
nel.  Everything  was  new,  and  yet  nothing  was 
strange.  The  blazing  coal  fires  —  it  was  June  — 
the  warm  carpets,  the  quiet  coffee-room  with  the 
London  newspapers  on  the  table,  the  subdued, 
respectful  servants,  the  mother -tongue  again, 
the  plain  richness  of  the  furnishings,  the  snug- 
ness  and  comfort,  —  the  Anglo-Saxon  knows  by 
these  that  he  is  once  more  in  Anglo- Saxondom. 
Arrived  at  London,  he  lost  no  time  in  delivering 
his  note  of  introduction  from  Landor  to  Lady 
Blessington,  who  immediately  asked  him  to  din 
ner  and  presented  him  to  the  beaux  esprits  who 
frequented  Seamore  Place.  For  this  charming 
woman  her  young  protege  conceived  at  once  the 
strongest  admiration,  tinctured,  it  may  be,  by  a 
tenderer  sentiment.  Her  wit  and  beauty,  her 
cordiality  and  social  graces,  had  drawn  about  her 
a  court  of  statesmen,  authors,  and  notabilities  of 
all  kinds,  over  whom  she  presided  like  the  queen 


138  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

of  a  Parisian  salon.  It  was  natural  that  Willis 
should  have  formed,  or  at  least  should  have  po 
litely  expressed,  an  exaggerated  estimate  of  her 
literary  gifts.  To  posterity,  who  have  not  the 
advantage  of  her  personal  acquaintance,  Lady 
Blessington's  writings  seem  of  very  little  impor 
tance,  with  the  possible  exception  of  her  "  Con 
versations  with  Lord  Byron,"  whose  subject 
lends  it  a  certain  claim  to  remembrance.  At 
her  house  Willis  met  Bulwer,  Moore,  Lord  Dur 
ham,  Disraeli,  James  Smith,  Gait,  Procter,  Fon- 
blanque  of  the  "  Examiner,"  and  many  other 
distinguished  men  whose  portraits  he  has  given 
in  the  "  Pencillings  "  with  a  sharpness  of  out 
line  which  makes  them  increasingly  valuable  as 
their  figures  recede  into  history.  It  is  not  at 
all  strange  that  an  enthusiastic  and  fanciful 
young  American,  without  antecedents,  ushered 
all  at  once  into  a  roomful  of  people  about  whom 
all  the  world  was  talking,  should  have  been  a 
little  imposed  upon  by  these  exalted  personages. 
He  was  not  in  a  critical  mood,  and  it  may  be 
freely  conceded  that  he  had  too  high  an  opinion 
of  Barry  Cornwall's  poetry,  and  of  the  electro 
plated  novels  of  the  authors  of  "  Pelham  "  and 
"  Vivian  Grey ; "  and  that  he  exclaimed  more 
than  was  necessary  over  the  varied  accomplish 
ments  of  that  gorgeous  dandy  —  Byron's  Cupi- 
don  dechaine —  the  Count  d'Orsay. 


LIFE  ABROAD.  139 

Still  he  kept  his  head  fairly  well.  Fortunate 
in  his  introductions,  he  was  the  man  to  make 
the  most  of  his  chances.  His  talent  for  society 
and  his  easy  assurance  put  him  quickly  de  ni- 
veau  with  his  new  acquaintances.  He  was  not 
at  all  above  owning  that  the  English  nobility, 
for  example,  impressed  his  imagination.  He 
liked  to  stay  at  their  houses ;  he  enjoyed  the 
wealth,  the  grandeur,  the  historic  associations 
that  surrounded  them.  His  appetite  for  luxury 
was  gratified  by  the  perfection  of  all  their  ap 
pointments  in  the  art  of  living.  The  fineness 
of  their  manners  pleased  his  aristocratic  tastes 
and  he  could  not  sufficiently  admire  the  high 
bred  women  and  the  simple,  cordial,  dignified 
gentlemen  with  whom  he  dined  or  drove  through 
the  cultivated  landscapes.  But  Willis  was  no 
snob  or  vulgar  tuft  hunter.  His  enjoyment  of 
his  privileges  was  accompanied  with  an  entire 
reserve  of  his  self-respect.  He  liked  the  com 
pany  of  those  whom  Dr.  Johnson  was  wont  to 
call  "  the  great."  But  though  he  loved  a  lord, 
he  preferred  a  commoner,  if  the  commoner  was 
preferable.  The  Duke  of  Richelieu,  whom  he 
had  met  at  Lady  Blessington's,  and  previously 
at  the  French  court,  he  described  as  "  the  inher 
itor  of  nothing  but  the  name  of  his  great  ances 
tor,  a  dandy  and  a  fool." 

"  What  a  star  is  mine !  "  he  wrote  in  a  letter  to  his 


140  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

sister  Julia,  three  days  after  his  landing  in  England. 
"All  the  best  society  of  London  exclusives  is  now 
open  to  me  —  me !  a  sometime  apprentice  at  setting 
types  —  me  !  without  a  sou  in  the  world  beyond  what 
my  pen  brings  me,  and  with  not  only  no  influence 
from  friends  at  home,  but  a  world  of  envy  and  slan 
der  at  my  back.  Thank  heaven,  there  is  not  a  coun 
tryman  of  mine,  except  Washington  Irving,  who  has 
even  the  standing  in  England  which  I  have  got  in 
three  days  only.  I  should  not  boast  of  it  if  I  had 
not  been  wounded  and  stung  to  the  quick  by  the 
calumnies  and  falsehoods  of  every  description  which 
come  to  me  from  America.  But  let  it  pass !  It  rec 
onciles  me  to  my  exile  at  least,  and  may  drive  me  to 
adopt  the  mother  country  for  my  own.  In  a  literary 
way,  I  have  had  already  offers  from  the  'Court 
Magazine,'  the  'Metropolitan  Monthly,'  and  the 
'  New  Monthly '  of  the  first  price  for  my  articles. 
I  sent  a  short  tale,  written  in  one  day,  to  the  '  Court 
Magazine '  yesterday,  and  the  publishers  gave  me 
eight  guineas  for  it  at  once.  They  all  pay  in  this 
proportion,  and  you  can  easily  see,  with  my  present 
resources  of  matter,  how  well  I  can  live.  I  lodge  in 
Cavendish  Square,  the  most  fashionable  part  of  the 
town,  paying  a  guinea  a  week  for  my  lodgings,  and  am 
as  well  off  as  if  I  had  been  the  son  of  the  President, 
with  as  much  as  I  could  spend  in  the  year.  Except 
my  family  now,  I  have  forgotten  everybody  in  Amer 
ica.  [Here  follows  the  passage  about  Mary  Benja 
min  already  quoted  in  chapter  III.]  I  never  can 
return,  however,  till  I  can  pay  my  debts,  and  it  will 


LIFE  ABROAD.  141 

take  me  long  to  lay  up  three  thousand  dollars.  When 
I  can  do  it,  I  shall,  and  make  America  a  farewell 
visit  for  years." 

Willis  followed  up  his  advantages  assiduously. 
He  went  constantly  to  Lady  Blessington's,  ex 
changed  calls  with  Moore,  breakfasted  with 
Procter  and  also  with  that  entertaining  diarist, 
Henry  Crabb  Robinson,  to  whom  he  brought  a 
letter  from  Landor,  and  in  whose  rooms  in  the 
Temple  he  met  Charles  and  Mary  Lamb.  His 
Parisian  acquaintance,  Dr.  Bowring,  was  back 
in  London  and  introduced  him  to  a  number  of 
people.  At  an  evening  party  at  the  Bulwers' 
he  met  Sir  Leicester  Stanhope,  who  had  been 
with  Byron  in  Greece,  and  with  whose  beautiful 
wife  Willis  became  quite  a  favorite,  composing 
his  verses  "  Upon  the  Portrait  of  the  Hon.  Mrs. 
Stanhope  "  to  accompany  an  engraving  of  her 
in  Lady  Blessington's  "  Book  of  Beauty."  At 
the  Stanhopes'  he  met  that  famous  pair  of  beau 
ties,  "  the  Sheridan  girls,"  Mrs.  Norton  and  her 
sister,  Lady  Dufferin,  to  the  former  of  whom  he 
had  addressed  a  poem  written  at  Paris  in  1832 
and  printed  in  the  "  Mirror  "  of  July  7,  1834. 

It  was  the  height  of  the  London  season,  and 
the  opera  was  in  full  blast,  with  Grisi  singing 
and  Fanny  Elssler  in  the  ballet.  Willis  was 
admitted  to  the  Alfred  Club,  and  invitations  to 
dinners  and  parties  began  to  pour  in  upon  him. 


142  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

All  these  gayeties  he  described  in  his  letters  to 
Morris,  which,  losing  somewhat,  it  may  be,  in 
picturesqueness,  gained  greatly  in  personal  in 
terest  during  his  stay  in  England.  It  was  in 
the  course  of  this  first  summer  in  London  that 
he  got  acquainted  with  Mary  Russell  Mitford, 
who  invited  him  to  spend  a  week  at  Reading, 
and  with  whom  he  maintained  for  some  time  a 
friendly  correspondence.  A  letter  to  Miss  Jeph- 
son,  July  23,  1834,  gives  her  first  impression  of 
him:  — 

"I  also  liked  very  much  Mr.  Willis,  an  American 
author,  whose  '  Unwritten  Poetry '  and  i  Unwritten 
Philosophy '  you  may  remember  in  my  American 
book,1  and  who  is  now  understood  to  be  here  to  pub 
lish  his  account  of  England.  He  is  a  very  elegant 
young  man,  and  more  like  one  of  the  best  of  our 
peers'  sons  than  a  rough  republican." 

The  generally  agreeable  impression  which 
Willis  made  in  English  society  was  not  without 
its  exceptions.  During  this  same  summer  in 
London  he  had  been  taken  by  a  friend  to  see 
Miss  Harriet  Martineau.  She  was  then  on  the 
point  of  embarking  for  that  trip  in  America,  her 

1  The  book  here  mentioned  was  her  compilation,  Stories  of 
American  Life  by  American  Authors,  printed  in  1830,  to  which 
reference  was  made  in  chapter  III.  A  number  of  Willis's 
letters  to  Miss  Mitford  are  published  in  The  Friendships  of 
Mary  Russell  Mitford,  from  one  of  which  the  above  passage 
is  taken. 


LIFE  ABROAD.  143 

very  outspoken  narrative  of  which  afterwards 
caused  so  many  heart-burnings  in  this  country. 
Her  vinegary  reminiscences  of  Willis,  as  re 
corded  in  her  autobiography,  though  rather  long, 
are  perhaps  worth  reproducing  here,  not  only 
for  their  liveliness,  but  because  any  contempo 
rary  impression,  however  unjust  and  mistaken, 
helps  to  fill  out  a  complete  picture  of  the  man, 
and  there  were  plenty  of  people  who  disliked 
Willis  cordially. 

"  I  encountered,"  she  says,  "  one  specimen  of 
American  oddity  before  I  left  home,  which  should 
certainly  have  lessened  my  surprise  at  any  that  I 
met  afterwards.  While  I  was  preparing  for  my 
travels,  an  acquaintance  one  day  brought  a  buxom 
gentleman,  whom  he  introduced  to  me  under  the 
name  of  Willis.  There  was  something  rather  engag 
ing  in  the  round  face,  brisk  air,  and  enjouement  of 
the  young  man  ;  but  his  conscious  dandyism  and  un 
paralleled  self-complacency  spoiled  the  satisfaction, 
though  they  increased  the  inclination  to  laugh.  Mr. 
N.  P.  Willis's  plea  for  coming  to  see  me  was  his 
gratification  that  I  was  going  to  America,  and  his 
real  reason  was  presently  apparent :  a  desire  to  in 
crease  his  consequence  in  London  society  by  giving 
apparent  proof  that  he  was  on  intimate  terms  with 
every  eminent  person  in  America.  He  placed  him 
self  in  an  attitude  of  infinite  ease,  and  whipped  his 
little  bright  boot  with  a  little  bright  cane,  while  he 
ran  over  the  names  of  all  his  distinguished  country- 


144  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

men  and  countrywomen,  and  declared  he  should  send 
me  letters  to  them  all.  This  offer  of  intervention 
went  so  very  far  that  I  said  (what  I  have  ever  since 
said  in  the  case  of  introductions  offered  by  strangers), 
while  thanking  him  for  his  intended  good  offices,  that 
I  was  sufficiently  uncertain  in  my  plans  to  beg  for 
excuse  beforehand,  in  case  I  should  find  myself  una 
ble  to  use  the  letters.  It  appeared  afterwards  that 
to  supply  them  and  not  to  have  them  used  suited  Mr. 
Willis's  convenience  exactly.  It  made  him  appear 
to  have  the  friendships  he  boasted  of  without  putting 
the  boast  to  the  proof.  It  was  immediately  before  a 
late  dinner  that  the  gentleman  called ;  and  I  found 
on  the  breakfast-table  next  morning  a  great  parcel  of 
Mr.  Willis's  letters,  inclosed  in  a  prodigious  one  to 
myself,  in  which  he  offered  advice.  Among  other 
things,  he  desired  me  not  to  use  his  letter  to  Dr. 
Channing  if  I  had  others  from  persons  more  intimate 
with  him  ;  and  he  proceeded  to  warn  me  against  two 
friends  of  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Channing's,  whose  names  I 
had  never  heard  and  whom  Mr.  Willis  represented 
as  bad  and  dangerous  people.  This  gratuitous  defa 
mation  of  strangers  whom  I  was  likely  to  meet  con 
firmed  the  suspicions  my  mother  and  I  had  confided 
to  each  other  about  the  quality  of  Mr.  Willis's  intro 
ductions.  It  seemed  ungrateful  to  be  so  suspicious  : 
but  we  could  not  see  any  good  reason  for  such  pro 
digious  efforts  on  my  behalf,  nor  for  his  naming  any 
countrywomen  of  his  to  me  in  a  way  so  spontaneously 
slanderous.  So  I  resolved  to  use  that  packet  of  let 
ters  very  cautiously,  and  to  begin  with  one  which 


LIFE  ABROAD.  145 

should  be  well  accompanied.  In  New  York  harbor 
newspapers  were  brought  on  board,  in  one  of  which 
was  an  extract  from  an  article  transmitted  by  Mr. 
Willis  to  the  '  New  York  Mirror,'  containing  a  most 
audacious  account  of  me  as  an  intimate  friend  of  the 
writer.  The  friendship  was  not  stated  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  but  so  conveyed  that  it  cost  me  much  trouble  to 
make  it  understood  and  believed,  even  by  Mr.  Wil 
lis's  own  family,  that  I  had  never  seen  him  but  once, 
and  then  without  having  previously  heard  so  much  as 
his  name.  On  my  return  the  acquaintance  who 
brought  him  was  anxious  to  ask  pardon  if  he  had 
done  mischief,  events  having  by  that  time  made  Mr. 
Willis's  ways  pretty  well  known.  His  partner  in  the 
property  and  editorship  of  the  '  New  York  Mirror ' 
called  on  me  at  West  Point,  and  offered  and  rendered 
such  extraordinary  courtesy  that  I  was  at  first  almost 
as  much  perplexed  as  he  and  his  wife  were  when 
they  learned  that  I  had  never  seen  Mr.  Willis  but 
once.  They  pondered,  they  consulted,  they  cross- 
questioned  me,  they  inquired  whether  I  had  any  no 
tion  what  Mr.  Willis  could  have  meant  by  writing  of 
me  as  in  a  state  of  close  intimacy  with  him.  In  like 
manner,  when,  some  time  after,  I  was  in  a  carriage 
with  some  members  of  a  picnic  party  to  Monument 
Mountain,  a  little  girl  seated  at  my  feet  clasped  my 
knees  fondly,  looked  up  in  my  face,  and  said,  '  O 
Miss  Martin eau !  You  are  such  a  friend  of  my 
Uncle  Nathaniel's ! '  Her  father  was  present ;  and  I 
tried  to  get  off  without  explanation.  But  it  was  im 
possible,  —  they  all  knew  how  very  intimate  I  was 
10 


146  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

with  Nathaniel;  and  there  was  a  renewal  of  the 
amazement  at  my  having  seen  him  only  once.  I 
tried  three  of  his  letters ;  and  the  reception  was  in 
each  case  much  the  same,  —  a  throwing  down  of  the 
letter  with  an  air  not  to  be  mistaken.  In  each  case 
the  reply  was  the  same,  when  I  subsequently  found 
myself  at  liberty  to  ask  what  this  might  mean.  '  Mr. 
Willis  is  not  entitled  to  write  to  me :  he  is  no  ac 
quaintance  of  mine.'  As  for  the  two  ladies  of  whom 
I  was  especially  to  beware,  I  became  exceedingly  well 
acquainted  with  them,  to  my  own  advantage  and 
pleasure  ;  and,  as  a  natural  consequence,  I  discovered 
Mr.  Willis's  reasons  for  desiring  to  keep  us  apart.  I 
hardly  need  add  that  I  burned  the  rest  of  his  letters. 
He  had  better  have  spared  himself  the  trouble  of  so 
much  manoeuvring,  by  which  he  lost  a  good  deal, 
and  could  hardly  have  gained  anything.  I  have  sim 
ply  stated  the  facts,  because,  in  the  first  place,  I  do 
not  wish  to  be  considered  one  of  Mr.  Willis's  friends ; 
and,  in  the  next,  it  may  be  useful,  and  conducive  to 
justice,  to  show,  by  a  practical  instance,  what  Mr. 
Willis's  pretensions  to  intimacy  are  worth.  His  coun 
trymen  and  countrywomen  accept,  in  simplicity,  his 
accounts  of  our  aristocracy  as  from  the  pen  of  one 
of  their  own  coterie ;  and  they  may  as  well  have  the 
opportunity  of  judging  for  themselves  whether  their 
notorious  '  Penciller '  is  qualified  to  write  of  Scotch 
dukes  and  English  marquises  and  European  celebri 
ties  of  all  kinds  in  the  way  he  has  done." 

The   simple   American   reader   will    have    a 


LIFE  ABROAD.  147 

chance  to  make  up  his  mind,  on  independent 
evidence,  of  how  far  Willis  was  qualified  to 
write  of  Scotch  dukes,  etc.  ;  but  meanwhile  it  is 
not  true  that  the  audacious  article  in  the  "  Mir 
ror  "  of  September  6,  1834  (which  was  not  an 
"article,"  by  the  way,  but  an  extract  from  a 
private  letter  to  Morris),  conveyed  any  implica 
tion  of  an  intimacy  between  Willis  and  Miss 
Martineau.  On  the  contrary,  it  expressly  says 
that  his  acquaintance  with  the  lady  was  of  only 
one  day's  standing. 

"  I  was  taken  yesterday,"  it  begins,  "  by  the  clever 
translator  of  '  Faust '  to  see  the  celebrated  Miss  Mar 
tineau.  She  has  perhaps  at  this  moment  the  most 
general  and  enviable  reputation  in  England,  and  is 
the  only  one  of  the  literary  clique  whose  name  is 
mentioned  without  some  envious  qualification." 

After  some  entirely  respectful  mention  of  her 
manner  and  appearance,  the  letter  then  goes  on 
to  say :  — 

"  There  is  no  necessity  of  bespeaking  for  so  distin 
guished  a  visitor  as  Miss  Martineau  the  warmest  at 
tentions  of  our  country.  She  goes  with  high  antici 
pations,  and  whatever  she  may  find  to  object  to  in 
our  society  and  institutions,  it  will  be  done,  there 
cannot  be  a  doubt,  in  a  spirit  of  womanly  and  simple 
candor.  She  is  sped  on  her  way  by  the  best  wishes 
of  the  best  hearts  in  England.  I  trust  she  will  be 
met  over  there  by  wishes  and  welcomes  as  warm  and 
as  many." 


148  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

Any  one  who  knew  Willis  would  have  felt  sure 
that  his  "  prodigious  efforts  "  on  Miss  Marti- 
neau's  behalf  sprang  from  his  always  good-natured 
and  sometimes  even  officious  eagerness  to  be  of 
service.  And  most  who  knew  him  would  prob 
ably  have  admitted  that  there  was  some  mixture 
of  a  "  desire  to  increase  his  consequence  "  in  his 
offer  of  introductions.  Motives  are  usually 
mixed  in  this  bad  world  and  Willis  was  seldom 
indifferent  to  opportunities  for  ingratiating  him 
self  with  people  worth  knowing.  But  even  so, 
it  would  have  been  more  gracious  in  the  lady  if, 
after  accepting  his  offers  and  the  attentions  of 
his  partner  at  West  Point,  she  had  taken  his 
professions  for  what  they  were  worth,  and  omit 
ted  this  spiteful  mention  of  him  in  her  book. 
Had  he  lived  to  read  the  passage,  he  would 
probably  have  consoled  himself  with  the  re 
flection  that  it  was  better  to  win  smiles  from 
beauty  than  approbation  from  a  strong-minded 
Unitarian  female  with  an  ear-trumpet,  or,  as  he 
politely  paraphrased  it  in  his  letter  to  Morris, 
a  "  pliable,  acoustic  tube." 

The  last  fortnight  in  August  he  was  ill  of  a 
bilious  fever,  during  which  his  new  friends  proved 
very  kind.  Lady  Blessington  called  daily  in 
her  carriage  at  his  lodgings  (over  the  shop  of  a 
baker,  who  gratified  Willis  by  being  overwhelmed 
at  her  ladyship's  condescension),  and  Dr.  William 


LIFE  ABROAD.  149 

Beattie,  the  king's  physician,  attended  his  inter 
esting  patient  devotedly  and  refused  to  take 
any  fee.  This  excellent  gentleman,  who  was  the 
anonymous  author  of  "  Heliotrope  "  and  a  pro 
lific  contributor  to  the  Annuals,  became  a  firm 
friend  of  Willis  and  his  correspondent  for  many 
years  after  his  return  to  America.  He  was  an 
intimate  of  Samuel  Rogers  and  of  Thomas  Camp 
bell,  whose  life  he  afterwards  wrote,  and  he  in 
troduced  Willis  to  both  of  them. 

By  September  the  latter  was  sufficiently  con 
valescent  to  be  ordered  into  the  country.  He 
had  received  an  invitation  from  the  Earl  of  Dal- 
housie,  whom  he  had  met  in  Italy,  to  make  him 
a  visit  at  Dalhousie  Castle,  near  Edinburgh,  and 
accordingly  he  set  out  for  Scotland  on  the  second 
of  the  month.  Lady  Charlotte  Bury,  a  "  scrib 
bling  woman,"  had  given  him  a  letter  to  her 
brother,  the  Duke  of  Argyle,  and  he  carried  a 
score  beside  to  other  people  in  Scotland.  At 
Dalhousie,  the  feudal  castle  of  the  Ramsays,  no 
bly  situated  on  a  branch  of  the  Esk,  Willis  was 
heartily  welcomed,  and  passed  a  most  agreeable 
fortnight.  The  earl  had  been  governor  of  the 
Canadas  in  1831 ;  Lady  Dalhousie  was  an  in 
valid,  and  both  of  them  were  quiet,  domestic 
people,  kindly  and  simple,  living  with  the  pro 
fuse  and  even  splendid  hospitality  proper  to  their 
rank,  but  without  ostentation  of  fashion  or  gay- 


150  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

ety.  The  house  was  full  of  guests,  among  them 
the  countess's  niece,  Lady  Moncrieff,  a  lovely 
widow  of  twenty-five,  who  was  very  polite  to 
Willis  during  his  next  winter  in  London.  The 
earl's  son,  Lord  Ramsay,  was  home  from  Oxford 
and  initiated  Willis  into  the  mysteries  of  shoot 
ing  over  the  stubble.  This  young  gentleman 
succeeded  to  his  father's  title  in  1838,  was  a  mem 
ber  of  Sir  Robert  Peel's  ministry  from  1843  to 
1847,  and  in  the  latter  year  was  made  Governor- 
General  of  India.  It  was  during  his  viceroyalty 
that  the  Burmese  war  was  fought,  the  Punjaub 
annexed,  and  the  railway  begun  from  Calcutta  to 
Bombay. 

After  leaving  Dalhousie,  Willis  spent  a  few 
days  in  Edinburgh,  where  he  breakfasted  with 
Professor  Wilson,  dined  with  Jeffrey,  and  danced 
till  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  at  the  Whig 
ball  given  in  honor  of  Lord  Grey.  An  attack 
of  scrofula  in  his  left  leg,  which  he  chose  to  de 
scribe  in  his  correspondence  with  his  English 
friends  as  "  gout,"  was  aggravated  by  this  last 
dissipation,  and  after  two  or  three  days  more  of 
poultices  and  plasters  at  Edinburgh,  he  took 
steamer  to  Aberdeen.  "  The  loss  of  a  wedding 
in  Perthshire,  by  the  way,  a  week's  deer-shoot 
ing  in  the  forest  of  Athol,  and  a  week's  fishing 
with  a  noble  friend  at  Kinvara  (long  standing 
engagements  all),  I  lay  at  the  door  of  the 


LIFE  ABROAD.  151 

Whigs."  He  was  laid  up  four  days  at  Aber 
deen,  but  finally  recovered  so  far  as  to  take  coach 
seventy  miles  across  country  to  Lochabers,  a 
small  town  on  the  estates  of  the  Duke  of  Gor 
don,  to  whom  he  brought  a  letter  from  Dalhou- 
sie.  At  Gordon  Castle  he  found  a  distinguished 
company  and  passed  ten  days  of  unmixed  enjoy 
ment.  There  were  thirty  guests,  among  whom 
were  Lord  Aberdeen,  who  had  been  foreign  sec 
retary  under  Wellington ;  his  son,  Lord  Claude 
Hamilton,  a  handsome  young  Cantab,  who  in 
vited  Willis  to  visit  him  at  the  university  for  a 
day's  hunt;  Lord  Aberdeen's  daughter,  Lady 
Harriet  Hamilton,  "  eighteen  and  brilliantly 
beautiful ;  "  Lord  and  Lady  Stormont,  Lord 
Mandeville,  Lord  and  Lady  Morton,  the  Duch 
ess  of  Richmond  and  her  daughter,  Lady  Sophia 
Lennox,  "the  palest,  proudest,  and  most  high 
born  looking  woman  I  ever  saw."  This  Lady 
Sophia  Lennox  was  probably  the  original  of 
Mildred  Ashly,  the  disdainful  beauty  in  "  Paul 
Fane."  She  seems  to  have  impressed  Willis  as 
the  type  and  embodiment  of  English  aristocracy. 
In  a  letter  to  Lady  Blessington,  written  from 
Gordon  Castle  and  printed  in  Madden's  "  Life 
of  Lady  Blessington,"  he  says,  "  There  is  a  Lady 
Something,  very  pale,  tall  and  haughty,  twenty- 
three  and  sarcastic,  whom  I  sat  next  at  dinner 
yesterday,  —  a  woman  I  came  as  near  an  antipa- 


152  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

thy  for  as  is  possible,  with  a  very  handsome  face 
for  an  apology."  The  same  letter  gives  his  opin 
ion  of  his  host  and  hostess  more  unreservedly 
than  he  could  venture  to  do  in  "  Pencillings." 
The  duke  he  describes  as  "  a  delightful,  hearty 
old  fellow  full  of  fun  and  conversation."  Wil 
lis's  letters  from  Gordon  Castle  were  perhaps 
more  criticised  than  any  other  part  of  his  "  Pen 
cillings"  for  their  alleged  violation  of  the  sanc 
tities  of  private  life.  They  are,  nevertheless, 
among  the  very  best  passages  in  his  correspond 
ence  and,  taken  together,  they  present  a  bril 
liant  picture  of  what  is,  doubtless,  so  far  as  ma 
terial  conditions  go,  the  most  perfect  life  lived 
by  man ;  the  life,  namely,  of  a  chosen  party  of 
guests,  in  late  September,  at  the  country  seat  of 
a  great  British  noble. 

From  this  pleasant  province  in  the  land  of 
Cockayne,  Willis  departed  toward  the  last  of 
the  month  and,  after  a  tour  of  the  Highlands, 
returned  October  6th  to  Dalhousie,  where  he 
passed  a  few  days  more  and  then  set  out  for 
England.  He  had  meant,  on  his  way  back  to 
London,  to  call  upon  Wordsworth  and  Surrey, 
having  letters  to  both  of  them,  and  to  pass  some 
days  by  appointment  with  Miss  Mitford  at  Read 
ing.  But  continued  trouble  with  his  ankle  altered 
his  plans,  and,  after  spending  a  few  weeks  at  the 
country  house  of  a  friend  in  Lancashire  —  whose 


LIFE  ABROAD.  153 

acquaintance  he  had  made  in  Italy  —  and  of 
another  in  Cheshire,  he  returned  hastily  to  Lon 
don  by  way  of  Liverpool  and  'Manchester,  and 
on  the  1st  of  November  took  up  his  quarters 
there  for  the  winter.  At  this  stage  of  his  jour 
ney  ings  "  Pencillings  by  the  Way  "  come  to  an 
end.  A  number  of  supplementary  letters  de 
scriptive  of  London  life,  of  the  Isle  of  Wight, 
of  Stratf ord-upon-Avon,  Charlecote,  Kenil worth, 
Warwick  Castle,  etc.,  were  published  at  irregu 
lar  intervals  in  the  "  Mirror  "  under  the  general 
heading  "  Loiterings  of  Travel."  With  letters 
from  Washington  and  the  paper  on  "  The  Four 
Eivers,"  they  make  up  the  "  Sketches  of  Travel" 
in  their  author's  collected  works. 


CHAPTER  V. 
1834-1836. 

LIFE    ABROAD   (CONTINUED). 

WILLIS  took  lodgings  at  No.  2  Vigo  Street. 
During  the  next  ten  months,  which  he  spent  in 
London  and  its  vicinity,  he  found  himself  some 
thing  of  a  lion.  His  articles  in  the  English 
magazines  had  begun  to  be  talked  about  in  the 
clubs,  and  society  people  who  had  known  him 
abroad  or  in  London  only  as  a  dandy  attach^ 
were  surprised  to  learn  that  "  that  nice,  agreea 
ble  Mr.  Willis  "  was  identical  with  "  Slingsby," 
the  brilliant  American  raconteur  of  the  "  New 
Monthly."  He  had  contributed  in  the  summer 
and  autumn  of  1834  a  number  of  sketches  — 
"  By  a  Here  and  Thereian  "  -  to  the  "  Court 
Magazine  :  "  "  Love  and  Diplomacy,"  "  Niagara 
and  So  On ;  "  to  Captain  Marryat's  "  Metropol 
itan  :  "  an  episode  of  Italian  travel,  "  The  Mad 
house  of  Palermo ; "  and  to  Colburn's  "  New 
Monthly  :  "  "  Incidents  on  the  Hudson,"  "  Tom 
Fane  and  I,"  "Pedlar  Karl,"  "The  Lunatic," 
and  "  My  Hobby  —  Rather  "  (the  same  as  "  The 


LIFE  ABROAD.  155 

Mad  Senior  "  in  "  Scenes  of  Fear  ").  The  nom 
deplume  of  Philip  Slingsby  he  borrowed  from 
the  luckless  wanderer  in  Irving's  "  Sketch- 
Book."  He  followed  these  up  during  1835- 
36  with  "F.  Smith,"  "Love  in  the  Library" 
("Edith  Linsey"),  "The  Gypsy  of  Sardis," 
"  The  Cherokee's  Threat,"  "  The  Revenge  of  the 
Signer  Basil,"  and  "  Larks  in  Vacation."  For 
his  "  Slingsby  "  papers  Willis  got  double  pay : 
Colburn  gave  him  a  guinea  a  page,  and  Morris, 
in  his  contract  with  whom  he  had  reserved  the 
right  to  print  twelve  sketches  a  year  in  the  Eng 
lish  magazines,  published  them  simultaneously 
in  the  "  Mirror,"  and  paid  for  them  at  the  same 
rate  as  for  original  articles.  They  were  for 
warded  to  him  in  proof-sheets  or  in  duplicate 
MSS.,  so  as  to  arrive  in  advance  of  the  English 
periodicals,  which  sometimes,  however,  reached 
America  first,  because  of  the  uncertainties  of  the 
mail-carriage  by  sailing  packet.  To  the  "  New 
Monthly  "  Willis  also  contributed  a  number  of 
short  poems,  "  Thoughts  in  a  Balcony  at  Day 
break,"  "  The  Absent,"  "  Chamber  Scene,"  and 

"To "  ("  Were  I  a  star,"  etc.).    He  wrote 

for  it  after  his  return  to  America  and  after  it 
was  united  with  "  The  Humorist "  in  1837,  un 
der  the  editorship  of  Theodore  Hook.  His  last 
contribution  to  it  was  "  The  Picker  and  Piler," 
in  the  April  number  for  1839. 


156  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

Lady  Blessington's  kindness  continued  after 
his  return  to  London,  and  he  was  taken  up 
by  other  fashionable  bluestockings,  dined  and 
wined,  feted  and  caressed  to  a  degree  that  may 
well  have  made  him  giddy.  The  two  rival  salons 
to  Lady  Blessington's  were  Holland  House  and 
the  residence  of  the  Dowager  Lady  Charleville 
in  Cavendish  Square.  It  does  not  appear  that 
Willis  was  invited  to  the  former,  but  he  went  to 
the  reunions  at  Charleville  House,  though  not 
so  constantly  as  to  Seamore  Place.  Through 
Lady  Blessington's  influence  he  was  admitted  to 
the  Travellers'  Club,  which  was  the  resort  of 
the  ultra  fashionable  ;  and,  on  Sir  George  Staun- 
ton's  nomination,  to  the  AthenaBum,  which  had 
more  of  a  literary  tinge  than  the  Alfred  or  the 
Travellers'.  Sir  George  Staunton  also  presented 
him  at  court,  a  favor  which  Mr.  Vail,  the  Amer 
ican  minister,  who  disliked  Willis  for  some  rea 
son,  had  declined  to  render.  Another  friend  gave 
him  a  perpetual  ticket  to  the  opera.  Among  his 
patronesses  were  the  Countess  of  Arundel  and 
Lady  Stepney,  who  wrote  bad  novels  but  gave 
good  dinners.  Lady  Blessington's  biographer, 
Madden,  who  saw  a  great  deal  of  him  in  those 
days,  has  recorded  his  recollections  of  him  as 
follows  :  — 

"  I  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  Mr.  Willis  on  many 
occasions  at  Gore  House,  to  which  reference  is  made 


LIFE  ABROAD.  157 

in  the  rather  too  celebrated  '  Pencillings  by  the  Way,' 
and  also  at  the  soirees  of  the  late  Lady  Charleville 
in  Cavendish  Square.  Mr.  Willis  was  an  extremely 
agreeable  young  man  in  society,  somewhat  over 
dressed  and  a  little  too  demonstratif,  but  abounding 
in  good  spirits,  pleasing  reminiscences  of  Eastern  and 
Continental  travel  and  of  his  residence  there  for 
some  time  as  attache  to  a  foreign  legation.  He  was 
observant  and  communicative,  lively  and  clever  in 
conversation,  having  the  peculiar  art  of  making  him 
self  agreeable  to  ladies,  old  as  well  as  young,  degage 
in  his  manner,  and  on  exceedingly  good  terms  with 
himself  and  with  the  elite  of  the  best  society,  wher 
ever  he  went." 

The  secret  of  Willis's  agreeableness  to  ladies 
lay  in  his  unfailing  deference.  It  is  extraordi 
nary  how  many  women  much  older  than  himself 
cherished  a  warm  affection  for  him.  He  had 
considered  the  meaning  of  Bacon's  saying,  "  No 
Youth  can  be  comely,  but  by  Pardon,"  and  sev 
eral  of  his  stories  are  studies  on  the  thesis  that 
there  is  a  beauty  in  age  which  may  inspire  pas 
sion.  One  in  particular,  not  found  among  his 
collected  writings,  deals  with  this  speculation : 
"Poyntz's  Aunt,"  published  in  "The  Ladies' 
Companion  "  of  December,  1842,  where  the  hero 
falls  violently  in  love  with  a  woman  of  sixty,  to 
whose  niece  the  family  expected  him  to  pay  his 
court. 


158  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

Willis  saw  more  "  life  "  in  London  than  was 
quite  good  for  him,  and  went  into  companies 
which  were  less  select  than  the  Gore  House  co 
terie,  although,  to  say  truth,  Lady  Blessington 
herself  was  looked  upon  by  "  the  best  people"  as 
a  trifle  off  color.  Her  house  was  frequented  by 
men  who  were  entirely  irreproachable,  but  the 
English  ladies  were  shy  of  visiting  there.  This 
was  due  mainly  to  her  rather  unusual  relations 
with  the  Count  d'Orsay.  In  obedience  to  the 
wishes  of  the  Earl  of  Blessington,  his  daughter 
by  a  former  marriage  had  been  compelled  to 
wed  the  count  under  penalty  of  forfeiting  her  in 
heritance.  The  poor  girl  reluctantly  espoused 
the  brilliant  stranger  provided  for  her  by  her 
father's  eccentric  caprice  ;  but  the  match  was 
unhappy,  and  was  almost  immediately  followed 
by  a  separation ;  notwithstanding  which,  D'Or 
say  continued  to  live  in  the  closest  intimacy  with 
his  wife's  stepmother  after  the  earl's  death,  and  in 
time  under  the  same  roof  with  her.  This  last  ar 
rangement,  which  was,  to  say  the  least,  odd,  and 
caused  much  scandal  in  British  society,  had  not, 
however,  gone  into  effect  when  Willis  first  came 
to  London.  Lady  Blessington  had  not  as  yet 
moved  to  Gore  House,  but  was  living  in  Seamore 
Place,  while  D'Orsay  had  lodgings  in  Curzon 
Street.  Nor  did  the  latter's  formal  separation 
from  his  wife  take  place  till  1838.  Another 


LIFE  ABROAD.  159 

intimate  friend  of  Willis  in  London  was  that 
very  unconventional,  not  to  say  rapid,  woman, 
Lady  Dudley  Stuart,  the  daughter  of  Lucieii 
Bonaparte,  "  a  lady  of  remarkably  small  person, 
with  the  fairest  foot  ever  seen,"  under  whose 
bonnet  "  burn  the  most  lambent  and  spiritual 
eyes  that  night  and  sleep  ever  hid  from  the 
world."  She  had  about  her  a  semi-foreign  soci 
ety,  not  without  its  fascinations,  of  artists,  ac 
tors,  opera-singers,  refugee  nobles,  and  adven 
turers  of  more  or  less  shady  antecedents.  In  his 
"  Sketches  of  Travel "  Willis  described  a  very 
free  and  easy  supper  party,  following  a  private 
concert  given  by  Lady  Antrobus,  at  which  he 
and  Lady  Dudley  Stuart  assisted,  together  with 
Grisi,  Lablache,  Rubini,  and  other  members  of 
the  Italian  opera  troupe  then  in  London.  Of 
course  neither  Lady  Antrobus  nor  Lady  Stuart 
was  mentioned  by  name  in  this  account. 

But  Willis's  acquaintance  was  by  no  means 
confined  to  the  Blessingtoii  set,  or  to  the  Bohe 
mian  circle  that  surrounded  Lady  Dudley  Stuart, 
but  included  many  families  of  unquestioned  po 
sition.  The  Ramsays,  for  instance,  were  solid 
people,  above  any  suspicion  of  queerness,  and  the 
earl's  niece,  Lady  Moncrieff,  whom  Willis  vis 
ited  in  London,  was  decidedly  "  evangelical." 
There  were  two  households  in  particular  which 
were  like  homes  to  him  during  the  last  year  and 


160  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

more  of  his  stay  in  England.  These  were  Shir 
ley  Park,  near  Croydon  in  Surrey,  the  residence 
of  the  Skinner  family,  and  the  Manor  House  of 
the  Shaws  at  Lee,  in  Kent,  only  a  ten  miles' 
drive  across  country  from  Shirley  Park.  The 
Hon.  Mrs.  Fanny  Shaw  was  a  daughter  to  Lord 
Erskine  and  a  sworn  friend  of  Willis.  Mrs. 
Mary  Skinner  was  wife  to  an  Indian  nabob,  a 
leader  of  fashion,  and  a  woman  of  intellectual 
tastes,  who  patronized  letters  and  entertained 
literary  people,  a  kind  of  Mrs.  Leo  Hunter,  in 
short.  Willis  was  introduced  to  her  at  Lady 
Simpkins's  by  Sir  John  Franklin,  in  February, 
1835,  and  met  her  again  at  a  dinner  given  by 
Longman,  the  publisher,  at  Hampstead,  where 
were  present,  among  others,  Moore,  Joanna  Bail- 
lie,  Jane  Porter,  and  Miss  Pardoe.  The  last 
was  a  very  pretty  woman,  author  of  "  Beauties  of 
the  Bosphorus,"  and  other  books  more  remark 
able  for  their  sumptuous  illustrations  than  for 
their  literary  quality.  She  was  a  poetess",  too, 
after  her  fashion,  and  once  addressed  a  tribute 
in  verse  "  To  the  Author  of  Melanie,"  which  was 
printed  in  the  "  Mirror  "  of  October  17,  1835. 
Both  Mrs-.  Shaw  and  Mrs.  Skinner  treated  their 
young  guest  with  the  most  delicate  and  consider 
ate  kindness.  They  made  him  offers  of  pecu 
niary  help,  of  which,  fortunately,  he  had  no 
need  to  avail  himself,  as  his  letters  to  the  "  Mir- 


LIFE  ABROAD.  161 

ror  "  and  his  "  New  Monthly  "  stories  (which 
added  fifteen  or  twenty  guineas  a  month  to  his 
"poor  two  hundred  a  year  ")  brought  him  in  re 
turns  which  were  ample  for  his  occasions.  The 
Skinners  had  a  town  house  in  Portland  Place, 
and  their  carriage  in  London  was  always  at 
Willis's  service.  Both  of  these  ladies  regarded 
him  as  a  son  or  a  younger  brother.  Bruce  Skin 
ner,  a  son  of  Willis's  hostess,  named  one  of  his 
children  after  him.  At  Shirley  Park  and  at  the 
Shaws'  he  met  a  number  of  very  charming  peo 
ple,  and  his  time  there  was  spent  in  drives,  lawn- 
parties,  etc.  In  the  library  at  Shirley  Park  two 
nieces  of  Walter  Scott,  the  Misses  Swinton, 
copied  for  him  "  Melanie  "  and  "Love  in  the  Li 
brary,"  which  he  was  preparing  for  the  press. 
An  extract  from  a  very  confidential  letter  from 
Willis  to  Mrs.  Skinner  may  be  worth  transcrib 
ing,  to  show  the  terms  of  frank  and  cordial  fa 
miliarity  on  which  he  lived  with  these  excellent 
people.  After  a  brief  history  of  his  life  and  a 
statement  of  his  financial  situation,  the  letter 
concludes  as  follows  :  — 

"  There  is  a  passage  in  your  note  which  pleased 
me.  You  say  if  you  had  a  daughter  you  would  give 
her  to  me.  If  you  had  one  I  certainly  would  take 
you  at  your  word,  provided  this  expose  of  my  pov 
erty  did  not  change  your  fancy.  I  should  like  to 
marry  in  England,  and  I  feel  every  day  (more  and 
11 


162  NATHANIEL  PARKER    WILLIS. 

more)  that  my  best  years  and  best  affections  are  run 
ning  to  waste.  I  am  proud  to  be  an  American,  but 
as  a  literary  man,  I  would  rather  live  in  England. 
So  if  you  know  any  affectionate  and  good  girl  who 
would  be  content  to  live  rather  a  quiet  life,  and  could 
love  your  humble  servant,  you  have  full  power  of  at 
torney  to  dispose  of  me,  provided  she  has  five  hundred 
a  year,  or  as  much  more  as  she  likes.  I  know  enough 
of  the  world  to  cut  my  throat  sooner  than  bring  a 
delicate  woman  down  to  a  dependence  on  my  brains 
for  support,  though  in  a  case  of  exigency  I  could  al 
ways  retreat  to  America,  and  live  comfortably  by  my 
labors.  Meantime  I  am  the  only  sufferer  by  my 
poverty,  and  am  not  poor,  for  no  man  is  so  who  lives 
upon  his  income.  Comprends-tu  ?  My  dear  friend, 
I  have  told  you  what  I  have  told  no  other  person  in 
the  world.  Most  men  and  women  would  think  it  in 
credible  that  an  attache  to  a  legation  could  keep  up 
appearances  on  two  hundred  a  year,  or  pity  him  if  he 
could  ;  and  I  never  thought  anybody  worth  the  con 
fidence  —  save  only  yourself.  I  would  tell  Miss  Por 
ter  just  the  same,  or  Mr.  Swinton,  but  who  else  ? 
No  one !  so  gardez  cela  ! 

"  I  enjoyed  the  ball  at  the  Ravenshaws'  exceedingly,, 
and  am  so  much  obliged  to  you  for  introducing  me  to 
Praed,  whom  I  like." 

"  I  have  one  or  two  homes  in  England,"  wrote  Wil 
lis  to  his  mother,  July  22,  1835,  "  where  I  am  loved 
like  a  child.  I  had  a  letter  the  other  day  from  Hon 
orable  Mrs.  Shaw,  who  fancied  I  looked  low-spirited 
at  the  opera.  '  Young  men  have  but  two  causes  of 


LIFE  ABROAD.  163 

unhappiness,'  she  says,  '  love  and  money.  If  it  is 
money,  Mr.  Shaw  wishes  me  to  say,  you  shall  have  as 
much  as  you  want ;  if  it  is  love,  tell  us  the  lady,  and 
perhaps  we  can  help  you.'  Where  could  be  kinder 
friends  ?  I  spend  my  Sundays  alternately  at  their 
splendid  country  house  and  Mrs.  Skinner's,  and  they 
never  can  get  enough  of  me.  I  have  a  room  always 
kept  for  me  at  both  places,  and  there  is  universal  re 
joicing  when  I  come  and  mourning  when  I  go.  I  am 
often  asked  whether  I  carry  a  love  philter  with  me  ; 
yet  with  all  the  uncommon  honors  and  favors  shown 
me  in  England,  I  assure  you  I  never  asked  or  made 
interest  directly  or  indirectly  for  any  acquaintance  or 
any  favor  since  I  landed  at  Dover.  What  has  come 
has  come  of  its  own  accord." 

Miss  Porter  and  Miss  Pardoe  were  both  do 
mesticated  at  Shirley  Park,  and  he  met  there  at 
different  times,  as  fellow  guests,  Lady  Franklin, 
Lady  Sidney  Morgan,  author  of  once  popular 
French  and  Italian  travels,  and  the  brilliant 
young  orator,  poet,  and  wit,  Winthrop  Mack- 
worth  Praed.  Of  the  latter  Willis  wrote  in  the 
"  Home  Journal "  many  years  later  :  "  We  were 
followers  together  in  the  train  of  the  admired 
belle  (a  visitor  under  the  same  hospitable  roof) 
whom  I  afterward  brought  home  with  me  to 
Glenmary."  Willis  attributed  to  his  religious 
poetry  the  honor  of  his  first  acquaintance  with 
Joanna  Baillie,  Jane  Porter,  and  the  Byrons, 


164  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

For  the  authoress  of  "  The  Scottish  Chiefs,"  es 
pecially,  he  formed  an  enduring  attachment,  and 
she  regarded  him  with  an  almost  motherly  affec 
tion.  A  lifelong  correspondence  was  kept  up  be 
tween  them,  and  at  the  death  of  Admiral  Robert 
Ker  Porter  at  St.  Petersburg  in  1842,  among  the 
MSS.  found  in  his  sea-chests  were  ninety  letters 
from  Willis  to  his  sister.  The  letters  from  Miss 
Porter,  among  Willis's  private  papers,  show  that 
she  was  an  equally  indefatigable,  though  a  not 
very  legible  correspondent.  Willis  encountered 
Ada  Byron  at  an  evening  party  in  London,  and 
thought  her  "  earnest  and  sweet."  Lady  Byron, 
who  was  a  Unitarian,  was  much  interested  by 
the  spirited  sketch  of  Dr.  Charming  in  a  series 
of  papers  on  American  literature  which  Willis 
had  contributed  to  the  "Athena3um,"  and  she  ex- 
x  pressed  her  favorable  opinion  of  them  in  a  letter 
to  Miss  Baillie,  as  also  her  pleasure  that  her 
daughter  had  made  the  author's  acquaintance. 
Miss  Baillie  gave  this  note  to  Willis  for  his  au 
tograph  book.  Byron's  sister,  Augusta  Leigh, 
he  also  met  in  London  society.  She  gave  him 
an  autograph  letter  of  Byron,  and  on  the  appear 
ance  of  "  Melanie  and  Other  Poems,"  in  March 
1835,  he  sent  her  a  copy,  and  received  an  ac 
knowledgment  in  which  she  said  that  the  book 
contained  "  some  of  the  most  touching  and  ex 
quisite  lines  I  ever  read."  The  venerable  Joanna 


LIFE  ABROAD.  165 

Baillie  wrote  him,  on  the  same  occasion,  a  letter 
filled  with  the  most  graceful  compliments. 

Among  other  London  acquaintances  of  Wil 
lis's  at  this  time  were  John  Leech,  the  artist,  and 
Martin  Farquhar  Tupper,  the  proverbial  philos 
opher,  who  afterwards  visited  him  in  America. 
A  few  extracts  from  a  manuscript  diary  irregu 
larly  kept  by  Willis  from  June,  1835,  to  March, 
1836,  will  serve  to  show  the  nature  of  his  daily 
engagements  and  occupations  :  — 

"  June  30.  Breakfasted  with  Samuel  Rogers.  Met 
Dr.  Delancey,  of  Philadelphia,  and  Corbin,  ditto. 
Talked  of  Mrs.  Butler's  book,  and  Rogers  gave  us  sup 
pressed  passages.  Talked  of  critics,  and  said  that  '  as 
long  as  you  cast  a  shadow,  you  were  sure  you  pos 
sessed  substance.'  Coleridge  said  of  Southey :  'I 
never  think  of  him  but  as  mending  a  pen.'  Southey 
said  of  Coleridge :  '  Whenever  anything  presents  it 
self  to  him  in  the  shape  of  a  duty,  that  moment  he 
finds  himself  incapable  of  looking  at  it.' 

"  Went  to  the  opera  with  Hon.  Mrs.  Shaw  and 
heard  Grisi  in  '  I  Puritani,'  and  saw  Taglioni :  both 
divine.  Visited  Lady  Blessington's  box  and  Lady 
Vincent. 

"After  to  a  party  at  Mrs.  Leicester  Stanhope's. 
Saw  Guiccioli,  and  was  stuffed  to  the  eyelids  by 
Lady  Mary  Shepard  about  my  shorter  and  scriptural 
poems. 

"  July  1.  MrS.  Skinner  drove  Jane  Porter  and 
myself  to  Harrow  to  hear  the  speeches.  .  .  . 


166  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

"  In  the  evening  to  a  party  at  Lady  Cork's,  and 
after  to  Lady  Vincent's  soiree." 

Lady  Cork  was  the  aged  but  still  beautiful 
Dowager  Countess  of  Cork  and  Derry ;  who  in 
her  youth,  as  Miss  Moncton,  had  been  a  favorite 
of  Dr.  Johnson,  and  whose  soirees  in  New  Bur 
lington  Street,  between  1820  and  1840,  were 
crowded  with  talent  and  fashion. 

"  2.  Sat  to  Rand  for  my  picture.  Went  to  Lady 
Dundonald's  fete  champetre  at  her  beautiful  villa  in 
Regent's  Park.  D'Orsay  and  all  the  world  there. 

"  3.  Dined  with  Tyndale  and  Greenfield  at  the 
Wyndham  Club.  Took  tea  with  Jane  Porter  and 
went  to  a  ball  at  the  Longmans',  Hampstead. 

"  4.     Went  to  Lee  on  a  visit  to  Hon.  Mrs.  Shaw. 

"  5.     Drove  to  Lady  Hislop's  to  tea. 

"  6.  Duke  de  Regina,  Vail,  Gen.  and  Mrs.  Tal- 
madge  dined  with  the  Shaws. 

"  7.  Returned  to  town.  Dined  with  Mrs.  Chan- 
non.  Lady  D.  Stuart,  Counts  Battaglia,  Vodiski,  De 
Grognon,  and  Miss  Cockaine  present.  Came  home  ill. 

"  8.  Dined  with  Mrs.  S.,  and  went  to  Lady  Dud 
ley  Stuart's  soiree. 

"  9.  Dined  with  Dr.  Beattie  and  met  Thomas 
Campbell.  Praised  my  poetry  to  the  skies  and  quoted 
from  '  Melanie,'  — 

'  She  died 
With  her  last  sunshine  in  her  eyes.' 

Spoke  of  Scott's  slavishness  to  men 'of  rank,  and  after 
said  it  did  not  interfere  with  his  genius.     Said  it  sank 


LIFE  ABROAD.  167 

a  man's  heart  to  think  he  and  Byron  were  dead  and 
there  was  nobody  left  to  praise  or  approve.  Why 
should  he  write  now  ?  Told  story  of  the  man  at 
the  deaf  and  dumb  who  did  not  know  him  as  a 
poet.  Abused  the  nobility  bitterly.  Said  they  were 
ungrateful,  and  thought  they  honored  you  by  receiv 
ing  a  favor  from  you.  Said  he  was  sorry  for  his  vin 
dication  of  Lady  Byron.  Story  of  dining  with  Burns 
and  a  Bozzy  friend  who,  when  C.  proposed  the  health 
of  Mr.  Burns,  said,  *  Sir,  you  will  always  be  known 
as  Mr.  Campbell,  but  posterity  will  talk  of  Burns.' 
He  was  playful  and  amusing,  and  drank  gin  and 
water.  Went  after  in  uniform  to  the  grand  Coliseum 
ball.  Seven  thousand  people  present. 

"  10.  Grand  review  in  Hyde  Park.  Went  to  a 
dejeuner  at  Mrs.  Wyndham  Lewis's  on  the  Park. 
Talked  to  Miss  Caton  and  the  Duchess  of  St.  Albans. 
Music  after  the  review.  Malibran  sang. 

"  Received  a  congratulatory  letter  from  Edward 
Everett. 

"  Party  at  Mrs.  F.'s,  Lady  Franklin's  sister.  Stupid. 

"  11.  Went  to  the  Duchess  St.  Albans's  fete  at 
Holly  Lodge.  The  duke  flew  a  falcon  and  killed  a 
pigeon.  Fireworks,  dinner  in  a  tent,  dancing,  sing 
ing,  etc.,  etc.,  there.  Mrs.  Marjoribanks  brought  me 
home." 

This  fete  furnished  some  items  for  Willis's 
story  of  "  Lady  Ravelgold." 

"  12.  Dined  with  Mrs.  Joanna  Baillie  at  Hamp- 
stead.  She  gave  me  some  of  the  wedding  cake  of 


168  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

Ada  Byron.  Said  that  her  husband,  Lord  King,  was 
hated  by  his  own  father  and  mother  and  often  in 
want  of  money,  but  an  excellent  person  and  beloved 
by  his  own  second  brother,  who  had  received  from 
the  father  all  that  was  not  entailed.  On  the  death 
of  the  father,  Lord  K.  had  nine  thousand  a  year.  Mrs. 
Baillie  said  that  Lady  Byron  had  given  to  the  present 
Lord  B.  her  whole  jointure  when  he  came  to  the 
title. 

"  "Went  to  Lady  Blessington  at  ten,  and  had  a  long 
talk  with  Countess  Guiccioli,  who  said  she  wished 
nevermore  to  be  spoken  of  in  good  or  ill.  The  evil 
was  remembered  and  the  good  forgotten.  She  made 
a  point  of  never  reading  the  papers. 

"  Thence  to  Charles  Kemble's  soiree.  Countess 
d'Orsay  there." 

And  thus  the  journal  proceeds  with  its  daily 
count  of  dinners,  balls,  soirees,  garden  parties, 
and  opera-going,  the  diarist  finally  recording 
himself  as  "  fatigued  to  death  with  dinners  and 

O 

dissipations."  In  fact  the  pace  began  to  tell 
upon  him.  Following  the  last  entry  that  I  have 
copied  here,  for  July  12th,  comes  the  first  draft 
of  a  poem,  "  Thoughts  on  the  Balcony  of  Devon 
shire  House  at  Sunrise  after  a  Splendid  Ball :  " 

"  Morn  in  the  East !     How  coldly  fail- 
It  breaks  upon  my  fevered  eye  ! 
How  chides  the  calm  and  dewy  air; 

How  chides  the  pure  and  pearly  sky  ! 
The  stars  melt  in  a  brighter  fire,  — 
The  dew  in  sunshine  leaves  the  flowers,  — 


LIFE  ABROAD.  169 

They  from  their  watch  in  light  retire, 
While  we  in  sadness  pass  from  ours." 

This  is  one  of  Willis's  most  genuine  utterances. 
The  same  revulsion  of  feeling  is  expressed  in 
"  Better  Moments  ''  and  "  She  was  not  There." 
There  were  two  men  in  him,  the  worldling  and 
the  poet ;  and  when  worn  with  fashionable  dis 
sipation  he  was  sensitive  to  the  rebuke  of  the 
midnight  heaven  or  of  that  "awful  rose  of 
dawn "  which  God  makes  for  himself  in  the 
"  Vision  of  Sin."  But  the  mood,  though  sin 
cere,  was  not  lasting.  "  Recovered  my  spirits," 
runs  the  entry  for  July  15th,  "  after  a  causeless 
depression  for  a  week." 

Toward  the  end  of  July  he  escaped  to  the 
country  and  "  passed  a  month  at  Shirley  Park 
and  the  Manor,  Lee,  alternately  reading  and  ly 
ing  on  the  grass  in  delightful  idleness,  with  the 
kindest  friends  and  the  greatest  contentment." 
At  Shirley  Park  there  were  archery  fetes,  the 
Archbishopess  of  Canterbury,  "  lords  and  ladies 
in  abundance,  and  poets  and  travelers  ad  libi 
tum.  It  is  midsummer,"  continues  the  letter 
from  which  I  quote  (August  5th),  "  in  cool  and 
breezy  England,  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon, 
and  a  beautiful  day.  The  house  is  in  the  mid 
dle  of  a  park  (nothing  but  grass  and  trees)  as 
large  as  the  Common  in  Boston,  the  soft  velvet 
greensward  closely  shaven  all  around  the  house, 


170  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

and  a  lovely  archery  ground  on  the  edge  of  the 
lake  just  beneath  my  window,  with  red  and  gold 
targets,  and  a  dozen  young  girls  and  beaux  with 
beautiful  bows  and  quivers  shooting  with  all  the 
merriment  conceivable.  There  is  a  beautiful 
daughter  of  Sir  Henry  Brydges  beating  every 
body,  and  my  friend  Mrs.  Shaw,  and  Lady  En- 
combe,  and  quantities  of  nice  people." 

At  Shirley  Park  he  had  a  letter  from  Jane 
Porter,  inclosing  an  invitation  to  him  from  Sir 
Charles  Throckmorton,  a  Catholic  gentleman  in 
Warwickshire,  at  whose  country  seat  she  was 
staying.  Willis  joined  her  there  on  September 
10th,  but  meanwhile  something  else  of  great 
importance  to  him  had  happened.  While  visit 
ing  at  the  Skinners'  he  had  met  his  fate  in 
the  person  of  Miss  Mary  Stace,  a  daughter  of 
General  William  Stace  of  Woolwich.  He  saw 
her  first  at  a  picnic  on  the  grounds  of  Lord  Lon 
donderry,  at  North  Cray,  and  "  thought  her  the 
loveliest  girl  he  had  ever  seen."  At  Shirley 
Park  —  whither  she  came  as  a  guest  —  he  was 
thrown  much  in  her  company,  and  after  a  week's 
acquaintance  made  her  a  proposal  of  marriage, 
and  was  accepted.  On  the  1st  of  September 
he  went  to  Woolwich  on  a  visit  to  the  Staces, 
and  in  the  course  of  a  day  or  two  asked  the 
general  for  his  daughter's  hand.  It  was  agreed 
that  the  engagement  should  be  short,  like  the 


LIFE  ABROAD.  171 

courtship,  and  that  the  wedding  should  come 
off  on  the  1st  of  October.  Mary  Stace,  who 
became  Mrs.  Willis  on  the  day  fixed,  was  a  girl 
of  uncommon  beauty  and  sweetness.  In  appear 
ance  she  was  of  the  purest  Saxon  type,  a  blonde, 
with  bright  color,  blue  eyes,  light  brown  hair, 
and  delicate,  regular  features.  She  had  a  gen 
tle,  clinging,  affectionate  disposition,  adored  her 
husband,  had  been  religiously  and  carefully  edu 
cated,  and  possessed  the  true  Englishwoman's 
sense  of  the  importance  of  the  male  sex  and  the 
due  subordination  of  woman.  Her  family  were 
most  worthy  and  substantial  people,  and  strictly 
evangelical.  General  Stace  was  the  Royal  Ord 
nance  Storekeeper  at  Woolwich  Arsenal.  He 
had  been  commissary  to  the  British  navy  in 
Egypt,  and  commissary  of  ordnance  at  the  bat 
tle  of  Waterloo,  and  had  been  rewarded  for  gal 
lant  service  in  that  famous  action.  He  gave 
Willis,  as  a  souvenir,  a  military  cloak  and  an 
eagle  clasp  taken  from  the  body  of  a  French 
officer  after  the  battle,  which  are  still  preserved 
in  the  family.  His  son-in-law  described  him  as 
honest,  hearty,  and  plain-spoken,  with  the  com 
mon  soldierly  weakness  for  telling  post-prandial 
stories  of  his  campaigns.  Mrs.  Stace  was  Irish, 
a  great  singer,  and  a  friend  of  Tom  Moore,  who 
used  to  listen  to  her  songs  by  the  hour.  There 
were  five  other  children  besides  Mary.  Two  of 


172  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

the  sons  were  in  the  army,  and  afterwards  there 
were  three  Colonels  Stace.  The  general  agreed 
to  give  his  daughter  <£300  a  year,  which,  with 
the  <£300  or  £400  which  Willis  counted  upon 
making  by  literary  work,  would  ,do,  wrote  the 
latter  to  Mrs.  Skinner,  for  a  poet.  Having  com 
pleted  the  arrangements  for  his  marriage,  he  set 
out  from  London,  September  10th,  by  the  Tan 
tivy  coach  for  Sir  Charles  Throckmorton?s  seat 
of  Coughton  Court.  This  was  a  fine  old  Eliza 
bethan  mansion  near  Alcester,  and  Willis  spent 
ten  days  there  very  agreeably,  visiting,  in  com 
pany  with  Miss  Porter  and  his  host,  Warwick 
Castle,  Kenilworth,  Stratford,  and  other  points 
of  interest  in  the  neighborhood.  Of  these  jaunts 
an  ample  narrative  is  given  in  "  Sketches  of 
Travel,"  originally  communicated  to  the  "  Mir 
ror."  Thence  he  returned  to  Woolwich,  receiv 
ing  on  his  departure  an  invitation  from  the  hos 
pitable  baronet  to  bring  his  wife  and  stay  a 
^fortnight  with  him.  At  Woolwich  he  was  again 
joined  by  Miss  Porter,  on  the  25th,  who  came  for 
a  week's  visit  to  the  Staces  and  to  be  present  at 
the  wedding.  From  Coughton  Court  the  expect 
ant  groom  had  written  to  his  friends  announc 
ing  his  engagement,  and  received  in  reply  many 
expressions  of  good  wishes.  Among  others,  Lady 
Blessington  wrote  as  follows  :  — 


LIFE  ABROAD.  173 

ANGLESEY-NEAR-GOSPORT,  September  19,  1835. 
MY  DEAR  MR.  WILLIS,  —  Yours  of  the  16th  has 
been  forwarded  to  me  here,  and  I  lose  not  an  hour 
in  replying  to  it.  I  congratulate  you  with  my  whole 
heart  on  your  approaching  marriage,  and  wish  you 
all  the  happiness  you  so  well  deserve,  and  which  a 
marriage  well  assorted  will  alone  bestow.  I  predict 
the  happiness  I  wish  you,  for  you  would  not,  I  am 
sure,  make  an  unworthy  choice,  and  the  distaste  which 
the  scenes  you  have  gone  through  during  the  last 
year  must  have  engendered  in  your  mind  will  have 
taught  you  still  more  highly  to  appreciate  the  society 
and  affection  of  a  pure-minded  and  amiable  woman, 
on  whom  your  future  happiness  will  depend.  I  think 
you  have  acted  most  wisely,  and  am  sure  that  the 
rational  plans  you  have  laid  down  will  insure  your 
felicity.  A  residence  near  London,  which  gives  you 
the  opportunity  of  enjoying  its  numerous  advantages, 
without  weakening  your  mind  by  a  too  frequent  con 
tact  with  its  dissipations,  is,  of  all  others,  the  one  I 
would  select  for  a  literary  man,  and  I  shall  look  for 
ward  with  pleasure  to  seeing  you  at  Seamore  Place 
in  your  new  and  more  respectable  character  of  a 
Domestic  Man,  which,  be  assured,  will  bestow  more 
happiness  on  you  than  all  the  futile  successes  ever 
acquired  in  the  heartless  maze  of  fashion  and  folly, 
in  whose  vortex  you  have  been  whirled  during  so 
many  months.  A  Man  of  Genius  is  out  of  his  natu 
ral  sphere  in  such  a  circle ;  he  loses  his  identity  and 
blunts  the  fine  edge  of  his  sensibility.  You  have  re 
tired  in  time,  and  will,  I  am  persuaded,  have  reason 


174  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

to  bless  the  gentle  and  benign  influence  that  has  at 
tracted  you  from  it  to  the  pure  and  healthy  atmos 
phere  of  domestic  life.  Be  assured,  my  dear  Mr. 
Willis,  that  out  of  the  circle  of  your  immediate  fam 
ily  you  have  no  friend  more  truly  interested  in  your 
welfare  or  more  anxious  to  promote  it  than  I  am,  of 
which  no  proof  in  my  power  shall  ever  be  wanting. 
I  shall  be  in  London  on  the  22d,  and  shall  have 
great  pleasure  in  seeing  you.  Your  secret  shall  be 
safe  with  me,  you  may  be  sure.  I  hope  the  little  tale 
will  be  sent  for  your  correction  in  a  day  or  two. 
Pray  have  "  Ion  "  left  at  my  house.  Mr.  Talfourd 
requested  that  it  might  not  leave  my  possession,  so 
that  in  lending  it  to  you  I  disobeyed  his  request. 

The  old  Earl  of  Dalhousie  wrote  a  letter  of 
hearty  congratulation. 

"  Wherever  you  go  or  sit  down  at  last,"  it  said, 
"  think  of  us  as  being  with  you  in  our  minds'  eye  at 
least,  and  if  it  shall  please  God  that,  in  the  course  of 
time,  we  ever  meet  again,  it  will  be  truly  a  day  of 
joy  here,  for  from  hence  I  move  no  more." 

His  son,  the  young  Lord  Ramsay,  had  jest 
ingly  promised  to  be  Willis's  groomsman  some 
day  at  Niagara,  and  the  former  now  reminded 
him  of  it,  and  asked  him  to  stand  up  with  him, 
and  Ramsay  sent  the  following  excuses  some 
three  weeks  after  the  wedding :  — 

YKSTER,  October  23,  1835. 

I  promised  to  play  my  part  as  best  man,  my  dear 
Willis,  at  Niagara,  and  to  have  descended  from  that 


LIFE  ABROAD.  175 

to  Woolwich  would  have  been  a  sad  bathos,  so  that  it 
was  perhaps  as  well  that  your  notice  was  too  short  to 
allow  of  the  possibility  of  my  being  with  you  before 
the  1st  of  October.  Still  I  can  congratulate  you  as 
well  at  a  distance  as  with  my  own  lips,  and  though 
the  romance  which  we  proposed  for  ourselves  is  gone, 
I  am  very  happy  to  congratulate  you  on  the  prose 
reality. 

I  had  written  all  this  to  you  three  weeks  ago, 
and  directed  my  frank  to  the  Athenaeum  Club,  a  place 
which  I  took  it  into  my  head  you  frequented,  when, 
this  morning,  the  letter  was  returned  by  the  porter 
with  a  "  non  est  inventus  "  written  on  it.  This  to  save 
my  character. 

Furthermore,  your  example  was  so  good  an  one, 
and,  fortunately,  so  contagious,  that  I  have  fallen  a 
victim,  and  am  going  to  be  married,  and  as  this  is 
not  a  lady's  letter,  it  will  be  as  well  not  to  keep  the 
most  important  part  of  the  intelligence  for  the  post 
script,  but  to  tell  you  at  once  that  it  is  to  Lady  Susan 
Hay.  If  I  were  to  dash  out  into  a  rhapsody  you, 
whose  experience  of  such  a  situation  is  of  so  recent  a 
date,  might  easily  forgive  me,  but  I  will  take  mercy 
even  on  you.  I  am  happy,  —  happy  now,  and  if  I 
am  not  happy  always  in  time  to  come,  Heaven  knows 
how  utterly  it  will  be  my  own  fault. 

When  next  summer  brings  visiting  time  we  shall 
meet,  I  trust,  in  Scotland,  and  exchange  at  once 
news,  visits,  and  congratulations. 

May  I  beg,  even  though  a  stranger,  my  compli 
ments  to  Mrs.  Willis,  and  believe  me 

Ever  yours  sincerely,  RAMSAY. 


176  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

Mrs.  Skinner  wrote,  in  a  letter  to  Jane  Por~ 
ter:  — 

"  Mary  Stace  is  a  sweet,  gentle,  affectionate,  lively 
girl,  —  natural,  so  that  you  may  see  at  once  there  is 
no  deceit  in  her  and  no  guile.  She  is  religious,  ac 
complished,  sings  sweetly,  is  pretty,  and  will  make 
Willis  more  happy  than  any  other  woman  I  know. 
He  will  have  no  heart-burnings,  no  misgivings  with 
her,  for  she  is  true  and  sincere.  You  will  love  her. 
She  was  so  religious,  good,  and  depend-on-able  that  I 
told  her  she  should  be  my  daughter-in-law." 

In  his  letters  to  his  folks  at  home  announcing 
his  betrothal,  Willis  insisted  a  good  deal  on  this 
point  of  his  fiancee  s  religiousness,  and  he  evi 
dently  shared  the  belief  commonly  held  and 
proclaimed  among  men  of  the  world,  that  relig 
ion,  like  a  low  voice,  is  an  excellent  thing  —  in 
woman ;  a  theory  which  some  women  resent  as  a 
covert  insult  to  their  understandings,  and  some 
men  as  an  open  insult  to  their  religion,  and 
which  may  be  described  as  the  converse  of  the 
proposition  that  a  reformed  rake  makes  the  best 
husband. 

"I  should  never  have  wished  to  marry  you,"  he 
wrote  to  his  betrothed,  about  a  fortnight  before  the 
wedding,  "  if  you  had  not  been  religious,  for  I  have 
confidence  in  no  woman  who  is  not  so.  I  only  think 
there  is  sometimes  an  excess  in  the  ostentation  of 
religious  sanctity,  and  of  that  I  have  a  dread,  as  you 


LIFE  ABROAD.  177 

have  yourself,  no  doubt.  Miss  Porter,"  he  adds,  "  is 
sincere  and  refined  as  few  professedly  religious  peo 
ple  are." 

In  another,  letter  he  says  :  — 

"  Mine  is  not  a  love  such  as  I  have  fancied  and 
written  about.  It  is  more  sober,  more  mingled  with 
esteem  and  respect,  and  more  fitted  for  every-day 
life.  It  had  well  need  be,  indeed,  for  I  have  taken 
it  in  lieu  of  what  has  hitherto  been  the  principal 
occupation  of  my  life.  I  am  to  live  for  you,  dear 
Mary,  and  you  for  me,  —  if  you  like !  That  is  to 
say,  henceforth  dissipation  (if  we  indulge  in  it)  will 
be  your  pleasure,  not  mine.  I  have  lived  the  last  ten 
years  in  gay  society,  and  I  am  sick  at  heart  of  it.  I 
want  an  apology  to  try  something  else.  I  am  made 
for  something  better,  and  I  feel  sincerely  that  this  is 
the  turning-point  of  both  mind  and  heart,  both  of 
which  are  injured  in  their  best  qualities  with  the  kind 
of  life  I  have  been  leading.  Do  not  understand  me 
that  I  am  to  make  a  hermit  of  myself,  however,  or 
a  prisoner  of  you.  You  will  have  always  friends 
enough,  and  society  enough,  and  change  of  place  and 
scene  enough.  In  short,  I  shall  exact  but  one  thing, 
—  four  or  five  hours  in  my  study  in  the  morning,  and 
you  may  do  what  you  like  with  the  rest." 

They  were  married  in  Plumstead  Church,  by 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Shackleton,  on  the  1st  of  October. 
"  It  was  a  kind  of  April  day,"  writes  Willis, 
"  half  sunshine,  half  rain,"  —  recalling,  somehow, 
the  coincidence  in  Julia  Mills's  diary  between 

12 


178  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

the  checker-board  tavern-sign  and  checkered  hu 
man  existence  on  a  similar  occasion  in  David 
Copperfield's  life,  —  "but  everybody  was  kind, 
the  villagers  strewed  flowers  in  the  way,  the 
church  was  half  full  of  people,  and  my  heart 
and  eyes  were  more  than  full  of  tears."  The 
bridal  pair  were  driven  in  Mr.  Stace's  carriage 
to  Rochester,  posted  next  day  to  Dover,  and 
crossed  the  Channel  on  the  3d.  They  passed  a 
fortnight  at  the  H6tel  Castiglione  in  Paris,  and 
then  returned  to  England,  where  they  spent  the 
winter,  partly  in  London  and  partly  at  Wool 
wich,  and  in  visits  to  the  Shaws,  Skinners,  and 
other  friends.  Willis  was  busy  in  getting  out 
the  first  and  second  English  editions  of  "  Pencil- 
lings  "  and  the  "  Inklings  of  Adventure."  He 
presented  his  bride  to  his  "  swell "  acquaintances 
in  London,  and  was  himself  introduced  by  his 
brothers-in-law  to  numbers  of  military  people, 
dined  at  the  Artillery  Mess,  and  was  given  the 
freedom  of  the  Army  and  Navy  Club.  He  set 
up  an  "  establishment,"  a  cabriolet  and  a  gray 
cab-horse,  "tall,  showy,  and  magnificent."  He 
had  taken  into  service  a  young  fellow  named 
William  Michell,  the  son  of  his  landlady,  a 
bright  and  handsome  lad,  who  now  made  a  very 
presentable  tiger.  William  went  to  America 
with  his  master  in  the  spring,  remained  in  his 
service  during  his  residence  at  Glenmary,  and 


LIFE  ABROAD,  179 

came  back  with  him,  in  1839,  to  England,  where 
he  ultimately  got  employment  as  a  machinist, 
having  a  good  education  and  a  knack  at  me 
chanics. 

In  May,  1836,  after  many  leave-takings,  Wil 
lis  sailed  with  his  wife  for  America.  His  "  Lines 
on  Leaving  Europe,"  — 

"  Bright  flag  at  yonder  tapering  mast,"  — 
dated  in  the  English  Channel,  express  the  feel 
ings  at  once  of  regret  and  of  hope  with  which 
he  set  his  face  homeward  after  an  absence  of 
four  years  and  a  half.  These  spirited  lines  are 
among  the  very  few  poems  of  Willis  which 
seem  destined  to  last.  They  have  the  real  lyri 
cal  impulse,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  read  them 
without  emotion.  Emerson,  who  gives  part  of 
the  poem  in  "Parnassus,"  omits  the  closing 
stanza,  in  which  the  poet  touchingly  bespeaks  a 
welcome  for  his  English  bride. 

"  Room  in  thy  heart !     The  hearth  she  left 

Is  darkened  to  lend  light  to  ours. 
There  are  bright  flowers  of  care  bereft, 

And  hearts  —  that  languish  more  than  flowers. 
She  was  their  light  —  their  very  air  ; 
Room,  mother,  in  thy  heart !  place  for  her  in  thy  prayer !  " 

Willis  published  three  books  while  in  Eng 
land.  "  Melanie  and  Other  Poems  "  appeared 
March  31,  1835.  It  was  divided  into  three 
parts  and  included  a  selection  from  the  three 


180  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

volumes  of  verse  published  in  America,  but  un 
familiar  to  the  British  public,  besides  some  half 
dozen  new  poems,  dated,  said  the  author,  in  his 
prefatory  note,  from  "  the  corner  of  a  club  [the 
Travellers']  in  the  ungenial  month  of  January." 
It  was  introduced  by  Barry  Cornwall,  who 
speaks  of  the  poet  as  "  a  man  of  high  talent  and 
sensibility,"  and  then  goes  on  with  some  reflec 
tions  of  a  friendly  nature  on  American  litera 
ture  and  the  desirableness  of  cultivating  kinder 
feelings  between  England  and  America.  Wil 
son,  who  reviewed  "  Melanie  "  very  favorably  in 
"  Blackwood's,"  made  Procter's  introduction  to 
it  the  theme  of  much  elaborate  ridicule,  in  the 
well-known  style  of  "Maga,"  when  rending  a 
cockney  author.  He  affected  to  have  gathered 
an  impression  from  the  title-page,  —  which  de 
scribed  the  poems  as  "  edited  "  by  Barry  Corn 
wall,  —  that  Willis  was  dead,  and  that  Procter 
was  performing  the  office  of  literary  undertaker 
for  "poor  Willis's  remains."  "Alas!  thought 
we,  on  reading  this  title-page ;  is  Willis  dead  ? 
Then  America  has  lost  one  of  the  most  promis 
ing  of  her  young  poets.  We  had  seen  him  not 
many  months  before  in  high  health  and  spirits 
and  had  much  enjoyed  his  various  and  vivacious 
conversation.  .  .  .  But  why  weep  for  him,  the 
accomplished  acquaintance  of  an  hour  ? "  He 
goes  out  on  the  street  and  tells  the  first  friend 


LIFE  ABROAD.  181 

he  meets  that  Willis  is  dead.  "Impossible," 
answers  the  friend;  "day  before  yesterday  he 
was  sitting  very  much  alive  in  the  Athenaeum 
Club:  here  is  a  letter  from  him  franked  Ma- 
hon,"  etc.  Another  Scotch  professor  —  Aytoun 
—  who  belonged,  like  Wilson,  to  the  Tory  light 
artillery,  was  moved  to  write  a  parody  of  "  Me- 
lanie."  The  same  humorist  also  paid  his  re 
spects  to  Willis  in  one  of  his  "  Ballads  of  Bon 
Gaultier,"  -  —  a  strenuous  piece  of  North  British 
playfulness,  in  which  Willis  and  Bryant  are 
represented  as  sallying  forth  like  knights  er 
rant  on  the  Quest  of  the  Snapping  Turtle :  — 

"  Have  you  heard  of  Philip  Slingsby  — 

Slingsby  of  the  manly  chest  ? 

How  he  slew  the  snapping  turtle 

In  the  regions  of  the  "west  ?  " 

The  two  longest  and  most  ambitious  poems  in 
this  volume  were  "  Melanie  "  and  "  Lord  Ivon 
and  his  Daughter."  The  first  is  the  story  "told 
during  a  walk  around  the  cascatelles  of  Tivoli," 
of  an  English  girl,  "  the  last  of  the  De  Brevern 
race,"  who  betroths  herself  in  Italy  to  a  young 
painter  of  unknown  parentage;  but  at  their 
bridal  at  St.  Mona's  altar  a  nun  shrieks  through 
the  lattice  of  the  chapel :  — 

"The  bridegroom  is  thy  blood  —  thy  brother! 
Rudolph  de  Brevern  wronged  his  mother," 

and  the  bride  thereupon  "  sunk  and  died,  with- 


182  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

out  a  sign  or  word."  The  stanza  and  style  are 
taken  from  Byron's  and  Scott's  metrical  ro 
mances.  The  very  first  line  — 

"  I  stood  on  yonder  rocky  brow  "  — 

is  a  reminiscence  of  "  The  Isles  of  Greece." 
The  second  poem,  which  is  equally  melodra 
matic  in  its  catastrophe,  is  in  blank  verse  and 
in  the  form  of  a  dialogue  between  the  Lady  Isi 
dore  and  her  father,  Lord  Ivon.  He  tells  his 
daughter  (with  a  few  interruptions  from  her, 
such  as  "  Impossible !  "  and  "  Nay,  dear  father ! 
Was't  so  indeed?")  how  he  had  in  vain  wooed 
her  grandmother  with  minstrelsy  and  feats  of 
arms,  and  then  her  mother  more  successfully 
with  gold :  marrying  whom,  he  had  begotten  Isi 
dore,  and  afterwards,  in  remorse  for  having 
dragged  his  young  bride  to  the  altar,  had  been 
on  the  point  of  draining  a  poisoned  chalice, 
when  she  had  anticipated  him  by  running  away 
with  a  younger  lover,  leaving  to  his  care  the 
babe,  now  grown  to  a  woman,  who  dutifully  con 
cludes  the  dialogue  with,  "  Thank  God !  Thank 
God !  "  Both  of  these  poems  were  imitative  and 
artificial,  and  the  last  not  a  little  absurd.  Wil 
lis  had  no  genius  for  narrative  or  dramatic  po 
etry,  and  when  he  tried  to  be  impersonal  and 
"  objective,"  he  wrought  against  the  grain.  The 
lyrical  pieces  in  the  book  were  almost  all  of 
them  graceful  and  sweet.  He  himself  thought 


LIFE  ABROAD.  183 

that  the  best  thing  in  the  volume  was  "  Birth- 
Day  Verses,"  addressed  to  his  mother  on  Janu 
ary  20,  1835.  Similar  in  theme  were  the  lines, 
"To  my  Mother,  from  the  Apennines,"  written 
at  an  auberge  on  the  mountains,  August  3, 
1832.  The  verses  to  Mary  Benjamin,  written 
in  Scotland  in  September,  1834,  have  been  al 
ready  mentioned.  They  stand  in  his  collected 

poems  as  "To  M ,  from  Abroad,"  and  were 

also  incorporated  in  "  Edith  Linsey,"  under  the 
title  "To  Edith,  from  the  North."  "The  Con 
fessional,"  dated  Hellespont,  October  1,  1833, 
was  also  meant  for  Mary  Benjamin.  This  and 
"  Florence  Gray  "  had  the  note  of  travel.  But 
a  Boston  poem,  "The  Belfry  Pigeon,"  was  the 
most  popular  of  anything  in  the  book  and  has 
retained  a  place  in  readers  and  collections  to 
the  present  day.  These  shorter  pieces,  like  all 
of  Willis's  truest  poetry,  were  purely  poems  of 
sentiment.  His  description,  in  "  Edith  Linsey," 
of  Job  Smith's  verses  as  "  the  mixed  product  of 
feeling  and  courtesy  "  applies  consciously  to  his 
own.  They  were  "  the  delicate  offspring  of  ten 
derness  and  chivalry,"  airy,  facile,  smooth,  but 
thin  in  content:  not  rich,  full,  concrete,  but 
buoyed  up  by  light  currents  of  emotion  in  a  re 
gion,  to  quote  his  own  words  again,  of  "  floating 
and  colorless  sentiments."  This  disembodied 
character  is  a  mark  of  almost  all  the  American 


184  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

poetry  of  the  Annual  or  Gemmiferous  period, 
and  is  seen  at  its  extreme  in  the  unsubstantial 
prolixity  of  Percival  and  the  drab  diffuseness  of 
Mrs.  Sigourney.  It  was  the  reflection  on  this 
side  the  water  from  Shelley,  from  Byron's  ear 
lier  manner,  from  Wordsworth's  most  didactic 
passages,  and  from  the  imitations  of  all  these 
by  secondary  poets,  like  Mrs.  Norton  and  L.  E. 
L.  Willis's  verses  were  much  better  than  Perci- 
val's  or  Mrs.  Sigourney's  —  defter,  briefer,  more 
pointed.  But  they  had  a  certain  poverty  of  im 
agery  and  allusion  which  belonged  to  the  school, 
a  recurrence  of  stock  properties,  such  as  roses, 
stars,  and  bells.  He  was  ridiculed  by  the  critics, 
in  particular,  for  his  constancy  to  the  Pleiades, 
which  would  almost  seem  to  have  been  the  only 
constellation  in  his  horizon. 

Toward  the  last  of  November,  1835,  the  first 
edition  of  "  Pencillings  by  the  Way"  was  pub 
lished.  It  was  an  imperfect  one,  made  up  has 
tily  for  the  London  market  from  a  broken  set  of 
the  "  Mirror,"  and  gave  only  seventy-nine  out  of 
the  one  hundred  and  thirty-nine  letters  since 
printed  in  the  complete  editions.  From  this 
imperfect  copy  the  first  American  impression 
(1836)  was  taken,  and  all  in  fact  down  to  1844. 
The  book  reached  a  second  English  edition  in 
March,  1836,  and  a  seventh  in  1863.  For  this 
first  edition  Willis  received  £250.  He  after- 


LIFE  ABROAD.  185 

wards  testified,  that  from  the  republication  of 
the  original  "  Pencillings,"  for  which  Morris  had 
paid  him  $500  a  year,  he  had  made,  all  told, 
about  $ 5,000.  Their  appearence  in  book  form 
had  been  anticipated  by  a  severe  criticism  of  the 
original  "Mirror"  letters,  written  by  Lockhart 
for  the  "London  Quarterly"  of  September,  1835. 
This  was  echoed  by  the  Tory  press  generally,  and 
it  was  their  attacks  which  led  to  the  issue  of  the 
London  edition  and  greatly  stimulated  its  sale. 
There  were  several  reasons  why  the  Tory  papers 
were  "  down  on  "  Willis.  In  the  first  place  he 
was  an  American.  In  the  next  place  he  had  been 
admitted  and  made  much  of  in  English  social 
circles,  where  English  men  of  letters,  who  were 
merely  men  of  letters,  did  not  often  go.  And, 
finally,  he  had  spoken  disrespectfully  in  these 
letters  of  the  editor  of  the  "Quarterly  "  himself. 
"Do  you  know  Lockhart?  "  Wilson  is  made  to 
ask  in  Willis's  report  of  their  conversation  at 
Edinburgh.  "No,  I  do  not,"  replies  his  inter 
locutor.  "  He  is  almost  the  only  literary  man  in 
London  I  have  not  met ;  and  I  must  say,  as  the 
editor  of  the  '  Quarterly,'  and  the  most  unfair 
and  unprincipled  critic  of  the  day,  I  have  no 
wish  to  know  him.  I  never  heard  him  well 
spoken  of.  I  probably  have  met  a  hundred  of 
his  acquaintances,  but  I  have  not  yet  seen  one 
who  pretended  to  be  his  friend." 


186  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

This  paragraph  was  enough  to  account  for  the 
"  Quarterly  "  article ;  but  the  personal  grievance 
was  kept  well  out  of  sight,  and  Willis  was  taken 
to  task  for  his  alleged  abuse  of  the  rights  of 
hospitality  in  reporting  for  a  public  journal  pri 
vate  conversations  at  gentlemen's  tables.  The 
article  was  a  very  offensive  one,  written  with 
ability  and  with  that  air  of  cold  contempt  of 
which  Lockhart  was  master.  It  sneered  at  Wil 
lis  as  a  "  Yankee  poetaster,"  and  a  "  sonnet 
eer  of  the  most  ultra-sentimental  delicacy;  "  in 
timated  that  his  surprise  and  delight  at  the 
manners  of  the  English  aristocracy  came  from 
his  not  having  been  familiar  with  the  usages  of 
the  best  society  at  home,  and  accused  him  of 
"  conceited  vulgarity  "  and  "  cockneyism  "  (an 
awful  word,  under  which  the  Scotch  Tories  con 
noted  all  possible  offenses  against  sound  politics 
and  good  literature).  The  passages  that  seem 
to  have  given  most  offense  to  the  critic  were  the 
report  of  the  conversation  with  Lord  Aberdeen 
at  Gordon  Castle  and  the  remarks  of  Moore 
about  O'Connell  at  Lady  Blessington's.  "  It  is 
fortunate  in  this  particular  case,"  wrote  Lock- 
hart,  "that  what  Lord  Aberdeen  said  to  Mr. 
Willis  might  be  repeated  in  print  without  pain 
ing  any  of  the  persons  his  lordship  talked  of; 
but  what  he  did  say,  he  said  under  the  impression 
that  the  guest  of  the  Duke  of  Gordon  was  a  gen- 


LIFE  ABROAD.  187 

tleman,  and  there  are  abundance  of  passages  in 
Mr.  Willis's  book  which  can  leave  no  doubt  that, 
had  the  noble  earl  spoken  in  a  different  sense,  it 
would  not,  at  all  events,  have  been  from  any 
feeling  of  what  was  due  to  his  lordship,  or  to 
himself,  that  Mr.  Willis  would  have  hesitated  to 
report  the  conversation  with  equal  freedom." 
The  article  concludes  as  follows  :  "This  is  the 
first  example  of  a  man  creeping  into  your  home 
and  forthwith  printing,  —  accurately  or  inaccu 
rately,  no  matter  which,  —  before  your  claret  is 
dry  on  his  lips,  —  unrestrained  table-talk  on  del 
icate  subjects,  and  capable  of  compromising  in 
dividuals'''  Lockhart,  as  usual,  contrived  to 
insult  Willis's  country,  through  her  representa 
tive.  "We  can  well  believe,"  he  said,  "that 
Mr.  Willis  has  been  depicting  the  sort  of  society 
that  most  interests  his  countrymen. 

'  Born  to  be  slaves  and  struggling  to  be  lords/ 

their  servile  adulation  of  rank  and  title,  their 
stupid  admiration  of  processions  and  levies,  and 
so  forth,  are  leading  features  in  almost  all  the 
American  books  of  travels  that  we  have  met 
with." 

To  this  censure  Willis  replied,  in  substance, 
in  the  preface  to  the  first  London  edition  of 
"  Pencillings,"  first,  that  from  "  the  distance  of 
America,  and  the  ephemeral  nature  and  usual 


188  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

obscurity  of  periodical  correspondence,"  he  had 
never  expected  that  the  "  Mirror  "  letters  would 
reach  England ;  nor  would  they  have  done  so, 
had  not  the  "Quarterly"  "made  a  long  arm  over 
the  water,"  and  reprinted  all  the  offending  por 
tions  ;  thereby  forcing  the  author's  hand  and 
compelling  him  to  publish  the  entire  collection 
in  justification  of  himself.  Secondly,  that  his 
sketches  of  distinguished  people  were  neither 
ill-natured  nor  untrue  ;  that  he  had  said  nothing 
in  them  which  could  injure  the  feelings  of  those 
who  had  admitted  him  to  their  confidence  or 
hospitality.  "  There  are  passages,"  he  allows, 
"  I  would  not  rewrite,  and  some  remarks  on  in 
dividuals  which  I  would  recall  at  some  cost," 
but  "  I  may  state  as  a  fact  that  the  only  in 
stance  in  which  a  quotation  by  me  from  the  con 
versation  of  distinguished  men  gave  the  least  of 
fense  in  England  was  the  one  remark  made  by 
Moore,  the  poet,  at  a  dinner  party,  on  the  sub 
ject  of  O'Connell.  It  would  have  been  harmless, 
as  it  was  designed  to  be,  but  for  the  unexpected 
celebrity  of  my  '  Pencillings ; '  yet  with  all  my 
heart  I  wish  it  unwritten."  And  finally,  that 
whatever  violations  of  delicacy  and  good  taste 
might  have  been  committed  in  the  "  Pencillings," 
the  author  of  "  Peter's  Letters  to  his  Kinsfolk  " 
was  not  the  one  to  throw  a  stone  at  them.  The 
first  plea  in  this  defense  was  sincerely  made,  as 


LIFE  ABROAD.  189 

might  be  easily  proved  from  Willis's  private 
letters.  It  was  a  disagreeable  surprise  to  him 
when  the  "  Quarterly"  reprinted  passages  from 
the  "Mirror  "  letters.  And  it  is  true  that  Amer 
ica  was  much  farther  away  from  England  than 
England  was  from  America.  Still,  if  Willis  had 
published  anything  that  he  should  not  have  pub 
lished,  it  was  not  a  perfect  excuse  to  say  that  he 
had  done  it  in  a  corner.  As  the  event  showed, 
foreign  correspondence  in  an  American  news 
paper  might  reach  England.  But  this  apology 
was  not  needed,  for  his  second  plea  covered  the 
ground.  There  was,  in  truth,  nothing  malicious 
or  slanderous  in  "  Pencilliiigs  ;  "  almost  nothing 
that  could  give  pain  even  to  the  most  sensitive. 
The  people  described  were,  nearly  all  of  them, 
in  a  sense,  public  characters,  accustomed  to  see 
ing  themselves  gossiped  about  in  print.  In  one 
or  two  instances  Willis  had  been  indiscreet,  as 
he  freely  admitted.  But  it  is  hard  for  one  liv 
ing  in  these  times  of  society  journals  and  "  inter 
viewers  "  to  understand  why  the  papers  should 
have  made  such  a  pother  over  a  comparatively 
trifling  trespass  upon  the  reserves  of  private  life. 
The  best  proof  of  Willis's  innocence  in  the  mat 
ter  is  that  the  people  whose  hospitality  and  con 
fidence  he  was  charged  with  abusing  took  no 
kind  of  umbrage  at  the  liberty.  On  the  con 
trary,  Lord  Aberdeen,  Wilson,  Dalhousie,  and 


190  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

others  wrote  to  him  in  warm  approval  of  his 
book.  "  With  what  feelings,"  said  the  "  Quar 
terly"  article,  apropos  of  the  description  of 
Gordon  Castle,  "  the  whole  may  have  been  pe 
rused  by  the  generous  lord  and  lady  of  the  cas 
tle  themselves,  it  is  no  business  of  ours  to  con 
jecture."  This  point,  however,  need  not  be  left 
to  conjecture,  as  it  is  amply  answered  in  the  fol 
lowing  letter  to  Willis  from  the  Earl  of  Dal- 
housie,  dated  February  25,  1836  :  — 

...  In  the  long  evenings  of  winter  we  have  beguiled 
the  time  with  "  Pencillings  by  the  Way,"  and  what 
ever  critics  and  reviewers  may  say,  I  take  pleasure  in 
assuring  you  that  we  all  agree  in  one  sentiment,  that 
a  more  amusing  or  more  delightful  production  was 
never  issued  by  the  press.  In  what  we  know  of  it,  it 
is  true  and  graphic,  and  therefore  in  what  is  foreign 
to  us,  we  think,  must  be  so  also.  The  Duke  and 
Duchess  of  Gordon  were  here  lately  and  expressed 
themselves  in  similar  terms. 

Lady  D desires  me  to  say  that  the  reviews 

could  not  have  done  more  for  its  success  by  their  am 
plest  praises,  for  it  is  now  in  every  hand. 

Our  family  has  been  much  occupied  by  Ramsay's 
marriage  this  winter,  he  following  your  steps  so 
closely.  He  has  added  greatly  to  his  parents'  hap 
piness,  and,  I  hope,  to  his  own  in  life.  Lady  Susan 
Hay  is  a  handsome  woman,  and  an  amiable,  pretty 
creature.  They  have  settled  themselves  at  Coals- 
town,  until  called  into  a  more  active  life,  which  I 


LIFE  ABROAD.  191 

hope  he  looks  forward  to,  and  you  have  thought  him 
fitted  for.  It  is  not  unlikely  that  he  will  be  chosen 
member  for  the  East  Lothian,  in  which  he  has  made 
his  residence,  triangular  between  me  and  his  father- 
in-law,  Lord  Tweeddale,  about  sixteen  miles  from  me. 
Pray  let  me  hear  from  you,  as  your  sincere  at 
tached  friend,  DALHOUSIE. 

Lady  Dalhousie  had  written  some  two  mouths 
before  :  — 

I  feel  that  it  is  positive  ingratitude  not  to  offer  our 
united  thanks  for  your  book,  which  we  received  in 
safety,  and  Miss  Hathorne  and  I  are  now  reading  it 
aloud  to  Lord  Dalhousie  in  the  evening,  with  very 
great  pleasure  and  amusement.  Your  descriptions 
recall  to  my  mind  admirably  what  I  have  seen,  and 
paint  to  my  mind's  eye  what  I  wish  to  see,  and  the 
happy  sunshine  which  your  own  mind  has  shed  over 
every  person  and  thing  you  have  met  is  refreshing 
and  enlivening  to  us,  living  now  much  alone  in  this 
dark  and  gloomy  December.  The  "  Quarterly  "  we 
read  with  extreme  wrath  and  indignation,  and,  be 
lieve  me,  it  will  afford  us  the  most  sincere  pleasure 
if  you  will  take,  if  you  find  them  worthy  of  it,  a  few 
more  of  your  spirited  pencillings  from  D.  Castle.  .  .  . 
Believe  me  always  very  sincerely  yours. 

C.  B.  DALHOUSIE. 

It  has  been  said  above  that  there  was  almost 
nothing  in  "  Pencillings  "  that  could  give  pain 
to  any  one  ;  but  to  this  statement  there  are  one 
or  two  exceptions.  The  first  was  the  instance  of 


192  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

Moore  and  O'Connell,  in  which  Willis  acknowl 
edged  and  regretted  his  imprudence.  "  This 
publication,  to  my  knowledge,"  says  Madden  in 
his  "  Life  of  the  Countess  of  Blessington,"  "  was 
attended  with  results  which  I  cannot  think  Mr. 
Willis  contemplated  when  he  transmitted  his 
hasty  notes  to  America,  —  to  estrangements  of 
persons  who,  previously  to  the  printed  reports  of 
their  private  conversations,  had  been  on  terms 
of  intimate  acquaintance.  This  was  the  case 
with  respect  to  O'Connell  and  Moore.  Moore's 
reported  remarks  on  O'Connell  gave  offense  to 
the  latter,  and  aroused  bad  feelings  between 
them  which  had  never  previously  existed,  and 
which,  I  believe,  never  ceased  to  exist." 

It  also  appears  from  a  letter  from  Willis  to 
Lady  Blessington,  and  an  unsigned  note  from 
a  friend  of  hers  to  Willis,  both  of  which  are 
printed  in  Madden's  "  Life,"  that  Fonblanque 
resented  the  description  of  himself  in  "  Pencil- 
lings,"  and  had  written  the  author  a  note  in 
terms  which  the  latter  thought  "  very  unjustifia 
ble."  Fonblanque  was  an  able  and  estimable 
man,  and  Willis's  portrait,  or  caricature,  of  him, 
though  not  unkindly  meant  and  applying  merely 
to  his  personal  appearance,  was  certainly  not 
pleasant  for  the  subject  of  it  to  see  in  print. 

"  I  never  saw,"  it  runs,  "  a  much  worse  face ;  sallow, 
seamed,  and  hollow,  his  teeth  irregular,  his  skin  livid, 


LIFE  ABROAD.  193 

his  straight  black  hair  uncombed  and  straggling  over 
his  forehead  ;  he  looked  as  if  he  might  be  the  gentle 
man  l  whose  coat  was  red  and  whose  breeches  were 
blue.'  A  hollow,  croaking  voice,  and  a  small,  fiery 
black  eye,  with  a  smile  like  a  skeleton's,  certainly  did 
not  improve  his  physiognomy.  He  sat  upon  his  chair 
very  awkwardly,  and  was  very  ill  dressed,  but  every 
word  he  uttered  showed  him  to  be  a  man  of  claims 
very  superior  to  exterior  attraction." 

With  the  exception  of  Lockhart,  Moore,  Fon- 
blanque,  and  Captain  Marryat,  whose  case  will 
be  mentioned  presently,  it  does  not  appear  that 
anyone  took  offense  at  anything  in  "  Pencillings." 
As  to  Lady  Blessington,  Lockhart's  misgiving 
as  to  whether  she  would  ever  "  again  admit  to 
her  table  the  animal  who  has  printed  what  en 
sues  "  was  needless.  It  was  she  who  saw  the 
book  through  the  press  while  Willis  was  in 
France  on  his  wedding  journey.  He  went  to 
see  her  frequently  during  the  remainder  of  his 
stay  in  London,  and  called  upon  her  on  his  two 
subsequent  visits  to  England  ;  and  their  friend 
ship  and  correspondence  continued  unbroken  till 
her  death  in  1849.  His  poem,  "  To  a  Face  Be 
loved,"  originally  printed  in  the  "  Mirror "  of 
November  14,  1835,  was  addressed  to  her.  It 
may  well  have  been,  however,  that  the  noise  made 
about  the  book,  and  the  cause  for  complaint  given 
to  a  few  of  the  habitues  of  Gore  House,  put  a 

13 


194  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

certain  constraint  upon  his  visits  there,  and  he 
probably  absented  himself  from  the  dinners  and 
receptions  given  by  the  mistress  of  the  mansion, 
and  which  it  had  formerly  been  his  chief  pleas 
ure  to  attend.  In  a  letter  to  her  from  Dublin, 
January  25,  1840,  he  says  :  "  I  have,  I  assure 
you,  no  deeper  regret  than  that  my  indiscretion 
(in '  Pencillings ')  should  have  checked  the  free 
dom  of  my  approach  to  you.  Still  my  attach 
ment  and  admiration  (so  unhappily  recorded) 
are  always  on  the  alert  for  some  trace  that  I  am 
still  remembered  by  you.  .  .  .  My  first  pleasure 
when  I  return  to  town  will  be  to  avail  myself  of 
your  kind  invitation,  and  call  at  Gore  House." 

In  spite  of  the  "  Quarterly's  "  attack  —  partly 
no  doubt  in  consequence  of  it  —  "  Pencillings  by 
the  Way  "  met,  on  the  whole,  with  a  generous 
reception  from  the  English  public,  and  even 
from  the  English  press.  Literary  criticism  in 
those  days  was  largely  influenced  by  political 
prejudice.  It  was  useless  for  a  Whig,  a  "  Cock 
ney,"  or  an  American,  to  hope  for  justice  from 
the  Tory  reviews.  The  "  Westminster  "  (Rad 
ical)  was  edited  by  Willis's  friend,  Dr.  Bo  wring ; 
the  "  Edinburgh  "  (Whig),  by  his  acquaintance, 
Lord  Jeffrey.  The  former  accordingly  greeted 
his  book  with  warm  approval,  and  the  latter 
praised  it  with  faint  damns.  On  the  other  hand, 
"  Eraser's,"  the  lightest  and  brightest  of  the 


LIFE  ABROAD.  195 

Tory  organs,  received  it  with  uproarious  con 
tempt.  The  notice  of  "  Pencillings  "  in  the  Feb 
ruary  number  of  the  magazine  for  1836  was  by 
Maginn,  —  the  "Odoherty"  of  the  "Noctes," 
—  a  witty  Irish  blackguard,  the  hired  bravo  of 
the  Tory  press,  who  spent  his  time,  except  when 
drunk  or  in  jail  for  debt,  in  writing  lampoons 
and  rollicking  songs  for  "  Blackwood"  and  "Fra- 
ser,"  expressive  chiefly  of  convivial  joys  and  of 
boisterous  scorn  of  the  Whigs.  There  was  a  fla 
vor  of  whiskey  and  Donnybrook  about  whatever 
Maginn  wrote,  and  he  wielded  his  blackthorn 
with  such  droll  abandon  that  his  victims  could 
hardly  help  laughing,  while  rubbing  their  heads. 
His  onslaught  on  "  Pencillings  "  began,  "  This 
is  really  a  goose  of  a  book,  or  if  anybody  wishes 
the  idiom  to  be  changed,  a  book  of  a  goose. 
There  is  not  a  single  idea  in  it,  from  the  first 
page  to  the  last,  beyond  what  might  germinate 
in  the  brain  of  a  washerwoman."  He  then  goes 
on  to  call  the  author  a  lickspittle,  a  "  beggarly 
skittler,"  a  jackass,  a  ninny,  a  haberdasher,  a 
"  namby-pamby  writer  in  twaddling  albums,  kept 
by  the  moustachioed  and  strong-smelling  widows 
or  bony  matrons  of  Portland  Place  ;  "  a  "  fifty- 
fifth  rate  scribbler  of  gripe-visited  sonnets,"  a 
"  windy-gutted  visitor,"  and  a  "  sumph,"  what 
ever  that  mystic  monosyllable  may  import.1  His 
1  It  was  doubtless  this  article  which  encouraged  Bates  in 


196  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

writing  is  characterized  as  "  chamber-maid  gab 
ble,"  "  small  beer,"  "  penny-trumpet  eloquence," 
"  Willis's  bray,"  and  "  Niagara  in  a  Jordan." 
President  Jackson,  whom  Maginn  supposes  to 
have  appointed  Willis  attache  to  the  French  em 
bassy,  is  "  that  most  open-throated  of  flummery- 
gulpers,  Old  Hickory."  Alluding  to  a  passage 
in  Willis's  "  slimy  preface,"  the  reviewer  says, 
"  that  Willis  should  literally  set  his  foot  on 
Lockhart's  head  is  what  we  think  no  one  im 
agines  the  silly  man  to  have  meant.  The  prob 
abilities  are  that  if  the  imposition  of  feet  should 
take  place  between  them,  the  toe  of  Lockhart 
would  find  itself  in  disgusting  contact  with  a 
part  of  Willis  which  is  considerably  removed 
from  his  head,  and  deemed  to  be  the  quarter 
in  which  the  honor  of  such  persons  is  most  pe 
culiarly  called  into  action."  Such  were  the 
amenities  of  criticism  half  a  century  ago.  Of 
course  this  animated  billingsgate  could  not  hurt 
Willis  in  anybody's  esteem,  and  called  for  no 
reply.  Maginn  was  a  wretched  creature  and  no 
one  minded  what  he  said ;  though,  to  be  sure, 
the  Hon.  Grantley  Berkeley  thought  it  neces 
sary,  in  this  same  year,  1836,  to  call  him  out 
for  a  scurrilous  attack  upon  himself  and  his 
cousin,  Lady  Euston,  in  a  notice  of  Berkeley's 

the  Madise  Portrait  Gallery  to  describe  Willis  as  a  "  sumph  " 
and  "N(amby)  P(amby)  Willis." 


LIFE  ABROAD.  197 

novel,  "  Castle  Berkeley."  The  latter,  in  his 
very  diverting  "  Life  and  Recollections,"  gives 
a  circumstantial  history  of  this  duel  and  of  the 
flogging  which  he  administered  to  Fraser  for 
publishing  the  article",  and  of  Maginn's  shame 
ful  treatment  of  poor  Miss  Landon. 

But  one  of  the  notices  provoked  by  "  Pencil- 
lings  "  came  near  having  serious  consequences 
for  Willis.  In  a  letter  in  the  "Mirror"  of 
April  18,  1835,  he  had  inserted  a  postscript, 
after  his  signature,  as  he  claimed,  and  meant 
only  for  Morris's  private  eye,  giving  some  in 
formation  about  the  sales  of  books  in  London. 
In  this  occurred,  among  other  things,  the  sen 
tence  following :  "  Captain  Marryat's  gross  trash 
sells  immensely  about  Wapping  and  Portsmouth, 
and  brings  him  five  or  six  hundred  the  book, 
but  that  can  scarce  be  called  literature." 
Morris  printed  it  with  the  rest  of  the  letter,  and 
when  it  reached  England  the  gallant  captain 
was  naturally  displeased  by  it.  His  revenge  was 
to  publish  in  his  magazine,  the  "  Metropolitan  " 
for  January,  1836,  a  review  of  "  Pencillings," 
or  rather  a  grossly  personal  review  of  the  author 
of  "  Pencillings."  The  article  was  less  telling 
than  the  "  Quarterly's,"  simply  because  Marryat 
did  not  drive  so  sharp  a  quill  as  the  editor  of  the 
"  Quarterly."  But  the  latter  knew  his  business 
as  a  reviewer  and  confined  himself  to  the  book 


198  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

in  hand.  Marryat,  on  the  contrary,  traveled 
outside  the  record  and  helplessly  allowed  his 
private  grievance  to  appear.  He  declared  that 
Willis  was  a  "  spurious  attache"  who  had  made 
his  way  into  English  society  under  false  colors. 

"  He  makes  invidious,  uncharitable,  and  ill-natured 
remarks  upon  authors  and  their  works ;  all  of  which 
he  dispatches  for  the  benefit  of  the  reading  public 
of  America,  and,  at  the  same  time  that  he  has  thus 
stabbed  them  behind  their  backs,  he  is  requesting  to 
be  introduced  to  them  —  bowing,  smiling,  and  simper 
ing."  "  Although  we  are  well  acquainted  with  the 
birth,  parentage,  and  history  of  Mr.  Willis,  previous 
to  his  making  his  continental  tour,  we  will  pass  them 
over  in  silence  ;  and  we  think  that  Mr.  Willis  will 
acknowledge  that  we  are  generous  in  so  doing." 
"  It  is  evident  that  Mr.  Willis  has  never,  till  lately, 
been  in  good  society,  either  in  England  or  America." 

Finally  he  exhumed  from  some  quarter  the  pas 
quinade  of  poor  Joe  Snelling,  referred  to  in  our 
third  chapter,  from  which  he  printed  the  follow 
ing  lines  by  way  of  showing  Willis's  standing  at 
home  :  — 

"  Then  Natty  filled  the  '  Statesman's  '  ribald  page 
With  the  rank  breathings  of  his  prurient  age, 
And  told  the  world  how  many  a  half-bred  Miss, 
Like  Shakspere's  fairy,  gave  an  ass  a  kiss  ; 
Long  did  he  try  the  art  of  sinking  on 
The  muddy  pool  he  took  for  Helicon  ; 
Long  did  he  delve  and  grub  with  fins  of  lead 


LIFE  ABROAD.  199 

At  its  foul  bottom  for  precarious  bread.  .  .  . 
Dishonest  critic  and  ungrateful  friend, 
Still  on  a  woman  l  thy  stale  jokes  expend. 
Live  —  at  thy  meagre  table  still  preside, 
While  foes  commiserate  and  friends  deride  ; 
Yet  live  —  thy  wonted  follies  to  repeat, 
Live  —  till  thy  printer's  ruin  is  complete; 
Strut  out  thy  fleeting  hour  upon  the  stage, 
Amidst  the  hisses  of  the  passing  age." 

Marryat's  article  was  a  stupid  one,  ungrammat- 
ical  and  coarsely  written.  But  its  clumsy  malice 
made  it  all  the  more  exasperating.  Lockhart 
was  a  gentleman  and  Maginn  was  an  Irishman. 
The  former  took  care  not  to  say  too  much,  and 
what  the  latter-  said  was  of  no  consequence. 
Both  of  them,  besides,  were  clever  writers,  and 
a  man  of  wit  and  spirit  had  rather  be  pricked 
by  a  rapier  in  the  hand  of  a  dexterous  adversary 
than  pounded  on  the  head  by  an  awkward  bully 
with  a  bludgeon.  Willis  made  a  mistake  in  no 
ticing  Marryat's  article  at  all,  but  he  was  stung 
by  the  implied  insult  to  his  parents,  and  his  mil 
itary  friends  persuaded  him  that  his  honor  was 
touched.  Accordingly  he  prepared  an  elaborate 
reply  in  the  shape  of  a  letter,  dated  January 
10th,  and  sent  it  to  Marryat  at  Brussels,  whither 
the  latter  had  gone  about  the  middle  of  Decem 
ber,  while  his  article  was  still  in  proof. 

"  Of  that  part  of  the  paper  which  refers  to  the 
i  Mrs.  Child. 


200  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

merits  of  my  book,"  Willis  wrote,  "  I  have  noth 
ing  to  say.  You  were  at  liberty,  as  a  critic,  to 
deal  with  it  as  you  pleased.  You  have  tran 
scended  the  limits  of  criticism,  however,  to  make 
an  attack  on  my  character,  and  your  absence 
compels  me  to  represent,  by  my  own  letter,  those 
claims  for  reparation  which  I  should  have  in 
trusted  to  a  friend,  had  you  been  in  England." 
The  letter  then  proceeds  to  answer,  in  detail,  the 
charges  and  innuendoes  of  the  "  Metropolitan." 
As  to  his  seeking  introductions,  Willis  declares, 
"I  have  never,  since  my  arrival  in  England, 
requested  an  introduction  to  any  man.  ...  In 
the  single  interview  which  I  had  with  yourself, 
I  was  informed  by  the  lady  who  was  the  medium 
of  the  introduction,  that  you  wished  to  know 
me."  The  letter  concludes,  apropos  of  Mar- 
ryat's  slur  on  Willis's  birth  and  parentage, 
"  You  will  readily  admit  that  this  dark  insinua 
tion  must  be  completely  withdrawn.  My  liter 
ary  reputation  and  my  position  in  society  are 
things  I  could  outlive.  My  honesty  as  a  critic 
is  a  point  on  which  the  world  may  decide.  But 
my  own  honor  and  that  of  my  family  are  sacred, 
and  while  I  live,  no  breath  of  calumny  shall 
rest  on  either.  I  trust  to  receive,  at  your  earli 
est  convenience,  that  explanation  which  you  can 
not  but  acknowledge  is  due  to  me  on  this  point, 
and  which  is  most  imperatively  required  by  my 


LIFE  ABROAD.  201 

own  character  and  the  feelings  of  my  friends." 
As  to  the  remark  which  had  drawn  the  "  Metro 
politan  "  article  upon  him,  Willis  confesses  that 
it  was  an  unjust  one,  but  says  that  "  it  occurred 
in  a  private  communication  to  the  editor  of  the 
4  Mirror '  and  was  never  intended  for  publica 
tion." 

Willis  had  this  letter  lithographed  and  sent 
copies  to  seven  of  his  particular  friends,  to  clear 
his  character,  as  he  said,  in  his  own  immediate 
circle,  of  the  aspersions  in  Marryat's  article. 
The  reply  to  this  demand  was  a  long  letter,  under 
date  of  January  21st,  declining  to  make  any  apol 
ogy  until  Willis  had  publicly  withdrawn  his  re 
mark  in  the  "  Mirror  "  about  Marryat's  gross 
trash  selling  about  Wapping,  etc.,  which,  said  the 
latter,  amounted  by  implication  to  an  attack  on 
his  private  character ;  denying,  furthermore, 
that  he  had  attacked  Willis  s  private  character. 
"  The  observations  made  by  you  upon  my  writ 
ings  must  be  considered  as  more  or  less  injurious 
in  proportion  to  the  rank  in  society  and  estima 
tion  of  the  person  who  made  them.  ...  It  was 
therefore  necessary,  in  this  instance,  to  point  out 
that  the  critic  had  not  been  accustomed  to  good 
society.  .  .  .  Now  this,  if  true,  is  no  crime,  and 
therefore  the  remark  can  be  no  attack  upon  pri 
vate  character."  Willis  accepted  this  explana 
tion,  in  a  second  letter  to  Marryat,  and  then 


202  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

sent  the  entire  correspondence  to  the  "  Times  " 
for  publication.  Marryat  was  furious  at  this, 
and  wrote  at  once  to  Willis,  "  I  refuse  all  expla 
nation  —  insist  upon  immediate  satisfaction  — 
and  that  you  forthwith  repair  to  Ostend  to  meet 
me."  If  the  captain  thought  that  his  opponent 
was  a  dandy  poet,  who  would  be  afraid  to  face 
his  pistol,  he  mistook  his  man.  "  The  puppies 
will  fight,"  said  the  Duke.  Willis  was  no  shot, 
and  the  only  weapon  that  he  knew  how  to  handle 
was  his  pen,  but  he  never  showed  any  want  of 
personal  courage.  The  correspondence  that  fol 
lowed  this  challenge  was  long  and  tedious.  The 
documents  in  the  case  are  a  score  in  number  and 
need  not  be  reproduced  here.  The  substance  of 
these  various  protocols  and  formalities  was  as 
follows.  Willis  answered  Marryat' s  letter,  ex 
plaining  why  he  had  thought  right  to  publish 
the  first  three  letters  that  had  passed  between 
them,  accepting  his  challenge,  in  case  he  found 
this  explanation  insufficient,  but  claiming  his 
privilege,  as  the  challenged  party,  to  name  some 
place  in  England  for  the  meeting.  Meanwhile 
a  duplicate  of  Marryat's  challenge  had  been 
handed  to  Willis  by  the  former's  "  friend,"  a 
Mr.  F.  Mills,  and  Willis  had  referred  him  to 
his  friend,  Captain  Walker,  and  had  agreed  to 
waive  his  right  to  name  a  place,  and  to  meet 
Marryat  at  Ostend.  Mr.  Mills  and  Captain 


LIFE  ABROAD.  203 

Walker  finally  adjusted  the  matter  and  arranged 
a  basis  for  an  amicable  settlement.  But  while 
these  negotiations  were  pending,  Marryat,  on 
the  receipt  of  Willis's  letter  of  explanation, 
withdrew  his  challenge  in  a  letter  dated  Febru 
ary  9th,  which  he  sent  to  the  "  Times,"  along 
with  his  challenge  and  Willis's  reply  to  it.  The 
terms  of  this  withdrawal  Willis  considered  in 
sulting,  and  the  publication  of  the  challenge 
after  it  had  been  agreed  upon  between  the 
friends  of  the  parties  that  Marryat  "  should  en 
tirely  withdraw  the  offensive  letter  containing 
his  challenge,"  he  regarded  as  a  further  insult. 
He  therefore  wrote  to  the  "  Times,"  on  the  day 
following  the  appearance  of  these  letters,  that 
the  differences  between  himself  and  Captain 
Marryat  were  not  at  an  end ;  and  on  February 
17th  he  wrote  to  Marryat  that  his  challenge 
still  stood  accepted,  insisting  on  his  right  to 
name  England  as  the  place  of  meeting,  but  of 
fering  in  case  of  interruption  there  to  give  him 
a  meeting  on  the  other  side  of  the  Channel. 
Marryat  accordingly  came  to  England  and  — 
Mr.  Mills  having  withdrawn  from  the  affair  — 
named  as  his  second  Captain  Edward  Belcher  of 
the  Royal  Navy.  Captain  Belcher's  ship  was  at 
Chatham  and  thither  all  parties  repaired  on  the 
27th  of  February.  Willis's  second  declared  to 
Captain  Belcher  that  his  principal  "  had  come 


204  NATHANIEL   PARKER  WILLIS. 

to  fight,  not  to  negotiate,"  but  on  a  little  discus 
sion  Captain  Belcher  found  his  principal  in  the 
wrong,  and  made  him  concede  what  was  neces 
sary,  the  following  pronunciamento  being  signed 
by  both  seconds  :  — 

CHATHAM. 

Captain  Marryat  and  Mr.  Willis  having  placed  the 
arrangement  of  the  dispute  between  them  in  our 
hands,  and  both  parties  having  repaired  hither  with 
the  intent  of  a  hostile  meeting ;  we  have,  previously 
to  permitting  such  to  take  place,  carefully  gone 
through  the  original  grounds  of  quarrel,  which  do  not 
appear  to  us  of  sufficient  importance  to  call  for  a 
meeting  of  such  a  nature. 

We  are  perfectly  borne  out  in  this  opinion  by  the 
arrangement  of  the  8th  of  February  entered  into  by 
the  mutual  friends  of  the  parties,  and  on  which  we 
think  Captain  Marryat  ought  to  have  withdrawn  his 
challenge  of  the  4th  inst. 

That  the  new  quarrel  arises  from  the  publication  of 
the  challenge  and  subsequent  letters,  in  which,  in  our 
opinion,  Captain  Marryat  was  not  justified.  We  are 
further  of  opinion  that  both  parties  should  mutually 
withdraw  the  offensive  correspondence,  the  terms  on 
either  side  being  unjustifiable,  and  we  conceive  that 
they  more  honorably  act  in  so  doing  than  in  meeting 
in  the  field.  EDWARD  BELCHER. 

F.  G.  WALKER. 

Thus  peacefully  ended  this  tempest  in  a  tea 
pot.  Willis  had  carried  his  point  and  had  acted 


LIFE  ABROAD.  205 

throughout  in  a  high-spirited  and  creditable 
manner  —  barring  the  folly  of  entering  into 
"an  affair  of  honor,"  in  the  first  place.  His 
letters  to  Marryat  are  those  of  a  gentleman, 
while  his  adversary's  language  is  invariably 
hectoring  and  coarse.  The  quarrel,  of  course, 
made  a  great  deal  of  noise  at  the  time  in  Lon 
don  literary  and  social  circles.  "  The  United 
Service  Gazette,"  the  organ  of  the  British 
Army  and  Navy,  took  Willis's  side  in  a  long  ed 
itorial  in  which  much  of  the  correspondence  was 
reprinted  from  the  "Times."  The  latter  jour 
nal,  however,  probably  voiced  the  true  senti 
ment  of  the  community  when  it  said  :  "  We 
confess  that  we  have  a  great  distaste  for  this 
sort  of  squabbling,  which  exhibits,  to  say  the 
least,  an  extraordinary  want  of  judgment  in  the 
disputing  parties." 

From  Chatham  Willis  posted  at  once  to 
Woolwich,  thirty  miles  away,  where  he  found  his 
wife  in  convulsions.  He  had  left  a  farewell 
letter  for  her,  fully  expecting  to  be  killed  in  a 
duel  with  Marryat,  who  was  reputed  a  crack 
shot.  Two  days  later  Willis  went  to  London 
and  called  out  Mr.  F.  Mills,  who  had  acted  as 
Marryat's  "  mediator,"  for  an  offensive  letter  in 
the  "  Times."  Mr.  Mills  named  W.  F.  Camp 
bell  of  Islay  and  Willis  named  John  Tyndale, 
between  whom  this  subsidiary  quarrel  was  soon 


206  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

patched  up,  in  a  manner  honorable  to  both.  The 
assaults  in  the  English  magazines  and  the  ru 
mors  of  the  Marryat  affair  of  course  found  their 
way  speedily  to  America,  and  were  circulated 
and  commented  upon  in  the  American  period 
icals  according  to  their  various  prepossessions. 
"  The  cultivated  old  clergymen  of  the  '  North 
American  Review,'  "  as  Poe  used  to  call  them, 
lent  the  support  of  that  influential  quarterly  to 
Willis  in  an  article  by  C.  C.  Felton,  a  very 
friendly  review  of  the  "  Pencillings,"  and  a  de 
fense  of  their  author  —  a  favor  which  Willis 
gratefully  appreciated. 

In  March,  1836,  he  published  in  London 
"  Inklings  of  Adventure,"  consisting  of  thirteen 
stories  and  sketches  of  American  and  European 
life,  reprinted  from  the  "New  Monthly,"  "  The 
Metropolitan,"  and  the  "  Court  Magazine,"  to 
gether  with  "Minute  Philosophies"  (from  the 
"  American  Monthly  ")  and  "  A  Log  in  the  Ar 
chipelago,"  from  the  "  Mirror."  The  book  was 
handsomely  published  in  three  volumes,  and 
dedicated  to  Edward  Everett.  For  an  edition 
of  1,200  copies  Willis  was  paid  X300,  reserving 
to  himself  the  copyright ;  and  as  he  had  received 
a  guinea  a  page  for  the  original  articles,  besides 
what  Morris  gave  him  for  their  republication  in 
the  "  Mirror,"  they  may  be  said  to  have  been 
fairly  profitable. 


LIFE  ABROAD.  207 

These  "  Slingsby  "  papers  are  exceedingly 
clever.  With  the  possible  exception  of  "  Let 
ters  from  under  a  Bridge "  and  portions  of 
"Pencillings  by  the  Way,"  they  are  the  best 
work  that  Willis  ever  did  ;  and  they  compare 
well  with  such  lighter  fiction,  in  the  way  of 
short  tales  or  sketches  of  travel  and  adventure, 
as  has  been  produced  in  America  since  Willis's 
day.  Whatever  else  they  are,  they  are  never 
dull  and  always  readable.  They  are  not  read 
now  only  because  the  readers  of  light  fiction 
habitually  follow  the  market  and  inquire  merely 
for  the  last  thing  out.  Many  of  them  were 
worked  over  from  his  "  American  Monthly  " 
juvenilia,  but  his  touch  had  grown  firmer  and 
he  had  purchased  experience,  as  his  motto  de 
clared,  by  his  "  penny  of  observation."  These 
"  Inklings  "  do  not  penetrate  to  the  stratum  of 
real  character,  of  strong  passion,  and  of  the 
interplay  of  motives  and  moral  relations  in 
which  all  vital  fiction  has  its  roots.  Their  plots 
are  commonly  slight,  their  persons  sketchy,  their 
incidents  not  seldom  improbable,  their  coloring 
sometimes  too  high.  As  transcripts  of  actual 
life  such  stories  as  "  Pedlar  Karl,"  "  The  Cher 
okee's  Threat,"  and  "  Tom  Fane  and  I,"  with 
the  easy  optimism  of  their  conclusions  and  their 
cheerful  avoidance  of  all  the  responsibilities  im 
posed  upon  the  dwellers  in  this  workaday  world, 


208  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

are  of  course  misleading  and  false.  Their  air 
is  the  air  of  every  day,  but  their  happenings  are 
those  of  the  wildest  romance.  Their  charm  — 
and  they  have  for  many  old-fashioned  readers  a 
quite  decided  charm  —  does  not  lie  in  truth  to 
life,  but  in  the  vivacious  movement  of  the  nar 
rative,  the  glimpses  of  scenery  by  the  way,  the 
alternations  of  sentiment  and  gayety,  neither 
very  profound,  but  each  for  the  time  sincere 
and  passing  quickly  into  one  another ;  and 
finally  in  the  style,  always  graceful,  and  in  pas 
sages  really  exquisite.  It  has  recently  been 
announced  that  style  is  "  increasingly  unim 
portant,"  but  can  this  be  true  ?  Not  surely, 
unless  fiction  is  to  become  hereafter  a  branch 
of  social  science  and  valuable  only  for  its  ac 
curate  report  of  life.  It  will  then  be  the  novel 
ist's  duty  to  obliterate  himself  in  his  message, 
and  any  intrusion  of  his  personality  between 
the  reader  and  the  subject  will  be  an  imperti 
nence.  But  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  the  per 
sonal  element  is  to  lose  its  place  in  fiction  and 
be  banished  to  the  realm  of  autobiography  and 
lyric  poetry.  Style  may  be  a  purely  external 
part  of  an  artist's  equipment,  but  it  is  a  nec 
essary  part  all  the  same.  A  bad  man  or  a  weak 
man  may  have  it,  but  that  does  not  make  it 
any  the  less  indispensable  for  the  good  man 
intending  literature.  Willis  was  born  with  it ; 


LIFE  ABROAD.  209 

it  showed  in  his  manners,  in  his  dress,  in  his 
writing.  Whatever  he  did  was  done  with  an 
air. 

The  American  parts  of  "  Inklings,"  written 
for  the  English  reader,  are  the  best.  They 
reproduce  for  us  the  life  of  gay  society,  when 
society  was,  or  seemed,  gayer,  or  at  least  fresher 
than  at  present.  It  was  the  era  of  expansion  and 
hope  before  the  financial  panic  of  1837.  The 
great  waterway  lately  opened  through  the  state 
of  New  York  had  set  people  traveling.  The 
beauties  of  American  lakes,  forests,  and  rivers 
were  being  discovered,  but  were  as  yet  unhack 
neyed.  Lake  George,  The  Thousand  Isles,  and 
the  St.  Lawrence,  did  not  swarm  with  tourists. 
Nahant  was  still  a  fashionable  seaside  resort 
and  Niagara  a  watering-place,  where  people 
actually  went  to  spend  months,  and  not  a  fleet 
ing  show  for  bridal  couples  and  a  mill-race  for 
manufacturers.  Saratoga,  and  Ballston,  and 
Lebanon  were  rival  spas,  the  first  a  "  mush 
room  village  "  merely,  —  "  the  work  of  a  lath 
and  plaster  Aladdin,"  -  -  when  Congress  Hall, 
with  its  big  wooden  colonnades,  was  in  its  glory. 
"  A  relic  or  two  of  the  still  astonished  forest 
towers  above  the  chimneys,  in  the  shape  of  a 
melancholy  grove  of  firs,  and  five  minutes'  walk 
from  the  door,  the  dim  old  wilderness  stands 
looking  down  on  the  village."  In  which  wilder- 

14 


210  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

ness  was  embosomed  Barliydt's  once  famous 
hermitage,  with  its  ear-shaped  tarn  and  columnar 
pine  shafts,  whither  one  resorted  for  trout  din 
ners,  and  where  "the  long,  soft  mornings,  quiet 
as  a  shadowy  elysium,  on  the  rim  of  that  ebon 
lake  were  as  solitary  as  a  melancholy  man  could 
desire." 

This  newness  in  life  at  the  Springs,  this  back 
ground  of  primitive  wilderness  against  which 
the  drives  and  dances  and  piazza  promenades 
of  the  fashionable  frequenters  were  projected, 
has  long  since  disappeared,  and  with  it  has  gone 
a  certain  old  school  exclusiveness  which  once 
marked  the  society  at  American  baths.  That 
society,  if  not  more  aristocratic  than  at  pres 
ent,  was  at  all  events  more  select,  simply  by 
virtue  of  being  smaller.  Fewer  people  were  in 
the  habit  of  going  into  the  country  in  summer, 
and  fashionable  circles  in  the  cities  were  not  so 
large  but  that  "  the  best  people  "  from  all  over 
the  States  might  know  each  other  at  least  by 
name.  A  reigning  belle  or  a  distinguished  beau 
had  a  national  reputation.  Southern  planters 
brought  their  families  to  Northern  resorts  and 
supplied  an  element  which  has  been  missed 
since  the  war. 

"  In  the  fourteen  millions  of  inhabitants  in  the 
United  States,"  Willis  explains,  "  there  are  precisely 
four  authenticated  and  undisputed  aristocratic  fan> 


LIFE  ABROAD.  211 

ilies.  There  is  one  in  Boston,  one  in  New  York, 
one  in  Philadelphia,  and  one  in  Baltimore.  With 
two  hundred  miles'  interval  between  them,  they  agree 
passably,  and  generally  meet  at  one  or  another  of 
the  three  watering-places  of  Saratoga,  Ballston,  or 
Lebanon.  Their  meeting  is  as  mysterious  as  the 
process  of  crystallization,  for  it  is  not  by  agreement. 
As  it  is  not  known  till  the  moment  they  arrive,  there 
is,  of  course,  great  excitement  among  the  hotel-keep 
ers  in  these  different  parts  of  the  country,  and  a  vil 
lage  that  has  ten  thousand  transient  inhabitants  one 
summer,  has,  for  the  next,  scarcely  as  many  score. 
The  vast  and  solitary  temples  of  Paestum  are  gay  in 
comparison  with  these  halls  of  disappointment." 

It  is,  for  the  most  part,  the  life  of  this  society 
which  Willis  so  engagingly  portrays  in  the 
"  Slingsby  "  sketches.  His  heroes  are  devil-may- 
care  young  fellows,  who  wander  about  from  one 
fashionable  resort  to  another,  composing  love 
verses,  flirting,  dancing,  eloping,  or  assisting  at 
elopements.  It  was  the  era  of  the  buck  or 
beau,  a  joyous,  flamboyant  creature  who  wore 
figured  waistcoats,  was  a  knowing  whip,  danced 
with  vigor,  loved  pink  champagne,  serenaded 
the  ladies,  was  gallant  in  speech,  dashing  and 
confident  in  bearing,  and  never  in  the  least 
blast?. 

This   freshness  and  youthfulness,  this  air  of 
stir,  adventure,  excitement,  hope,  which  was  im- 


212  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

pressed  upon  American  life,  books,  and  society 
of  that  date  are  reflected  from  Willis's  spark 
ling  pages  and  give  them  even  a  sort  of  his 
torical  interest,  apart  from  their  claims  as  liter 
ature.  There  is  a  breath  of  morning  wind  in 
them.  With  the  homelier  side  of  life  he  had 
little  concern,  and  his  writing  lacks  gravity  and 
simplicity.  Whenever  he  grows  serious,  it  is  to 
grow  sentimental.  "  F.  Smith  "  is  perhaps  the 
most  artistic  of  these  sketches,  and  the  most 
representative  of  its  author's  talent,  in  its  quick 
interchange  of  poetic  description,  bright  dia 
logue,  light,  malicious  humor,  and  natural  senti 
ment  ;  neither  mood  in  excess,  nor  dwelt  on  long 
enough  to  fatigue.  It  is  a  trifling  episode  — 
the  caprice  of  a  summer  belle  at  Nahant.  Its 
hero  is  the  same  "  gentle  monster  "  who  reap 
pears  in  many  of  the  "  Inklings  "  —  in  "  Edith 
Linsey,"  "The  Gypsy  of  Sardis,"  and  "Niag 
ara,"  a  Green  Mountain  Frankenstein  and  Qui 
xote  in  one,  absent-minded  and  uncouth  of 
aspect,  but  with  a  soul  filled  with  enthusiasm 
for  beauty  and  a  delicate,  chivalrous  devotion  to 
women.  He  is  half  hero  and  half  butt,  and 
introduced  as  a  constant  foil  to  Slingsby,  the 
dandy  exquisite  and  man  of  the  world. 

"  Edith  Linsey "  was  the  most  ambitious  of 
the  American  sketches.  It  was  a  novel  in  out 
line,  and  had  an  original  plot,  the  intellectual 


LIFE  ABROAD.  213 

passion  of  a  young  student  for  a  girl  who  is 
thought  to  be  dying  of  consumption,  and  whose 
disease  has  imparted  an  exaltation  to  her  feel 
ings,  and  a  nervous,  spiritual  intensity  to  her 
thoughts.  The  anti-climax  comes  when  she  un 
expectedly  recovers  her  health,  and  with  it  her 
worldly  ambitions,  and  coolly  jilts  her  quondam 
lover.  There  are  passages  in  "Edith  Linsey" 
—  particularly  in  the  scenes  between  the  lovers 
in  the  library  —  of  unusual  thoughtf ulness,  elo 
quence,  and  emotional  depth,  but  the  story  is 
loosely  put  together,  and  interrupted  by  digres 
sions,  and  in  the  latter  part  of  it  the  author 
seemed  more  concerned  to  deliver  himself  of 
college  reminiscences  and  descriptions  of  scenery 
than  to  carry  on  his  narrative  with  a  firm  hand. 
"  The  Gypsy  of  Sardis  "  was  the  best  of  the 
European  sketches,  and  had  a  very  moving, 
though  slightly  melodramatic,  conclusion.  It 
was  a  more  highly  finished  study  of  Eastern 
scenery  and  life  than  Willis  had  had  leisure  to 
give  in  his  "  Pencillings."  A  comparison  of  the 
two  shows  from  what  slight  hints  he  worked  up 
the  romance,  —  a  momentary  glimpse  of  a  gypsy 
girl  at  a  tent  door,  and  of  an  Arab  in  the  slave 
market  at  Stamboul,  a  ride  up  the  Valley  of 
Sweet  Waters,  and  a  morning  in  the  shop  of 
old  Mustapha,  the  perfumer.  "  Love  and  Diplo 
macy  "  and  "  The  Revenge  of 'the  Signor  Basil " 


214  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

were  less  successful,  because  more  remote  from 
their  author's  experience.  He  had  not  the  kind 
of  imagination  necessary  to  transport  him  into 
alien  characters  and  situations.  His  fancy  re 
quired  some  contact  with  its  object  before  it 
would  take  off  the  electric  spark. 

Willis's  English  had  many  excellent  qualities. 
It  was  crisp,  clean  cut,  pointed,  nimble  on  the 
turn.  He  was  good  at  a  quotation,  deftly 
brought  in,  unhackneyed,  and  never  too  much 
of  it,  a  single  phrase  or  sentence  or  half  a  line 
of  verse  maybe.  There  is  a  perpetual  twinkle 
or  ripple  over  his  style,  like  a  quaver  in  music, 
which  sometimes  fatigues.  Is  the  man  never 
going  to  forget  himself  and  say  a  thing  plainly  ? 
the  reader  asks.  But  the  verbal  prettinesses  and 
affectations  which  disfigured  his  later  prose  do 
not  abound  in  his  earlier  and  better  work.  He 
had  at  all  times,  however,  a  feminine  fondness 
for  italics  and  exclamations,  and  his  figures  had 
a  daintiness  which  displeased  severe  critics. 
Thus:  "The  gold  of  the  sunset  had  glided  up 
the  dark  pine-tops  and  disappeared,  like  a  ring 
taken  slowly  from  an  Ethiop's  finger."  "  As 
much  salt  as  could  be  tied  up  in  the  cup  of  a 
large  water-lily  "  is  an  instance  of  his  superfine 
way  of  putting  things.  He  likened  Daniel  Web 
ster's  forehead,  among  the  heads  at  a  Jenny 
Lind  concert,  to  "  a' massive  magnolia  blossom,  too 


LIFE  ABROAD.  215 

heavy  for  the  breeze  to  stir,  splendid  and  silent 
amid  flattering  poplar  leaves."  The  "crushed 
orange  blossom,  clinging  to  one  of  the  heels  "  of 
Ernest  Clay's  boots,  was  a  touch  which  greatly 
amused  Thackeray.  And  others  have  been 
amused  by  the  fantastic  headings  which  he  in 
vented  for  certain  columns  in  the  "  Home  Jour 
nal"  :  "Sparklings  of  Tenth  Waves:  or  Bits 
Relished  in  Recent  Readings,"  "Breezes  from 
Spice  Islands,  passed  in  the  Voyage  of  Life," 
and  the  like,  which  read  like  the  title  of  a  six 
teenth  century  pamphlet.  An  old  lady  in  Hart 
ford  used  to  say  that  "  Nat  Willis  ought  to  go 
about  in  spring,  in  sky-blue  breeches,  with  a 
rose-colored  bellows  to  blow  the  buds  open." 
It  is  remarkable  with  what  consent  all  who  have 
had  occasion  to  characterize  Willis's  diction  hit 
upon  the  metaphor  of  champagne.  "  The  wine 
of  Bacon's  writings,"  said  Dr.  Johnson,  "is  a 
dry  wine."  The  wine  of  Willis's  writings  was 
certainly  a  /Schaumwein.  It  had  not  the  rich, 
still  glow  of  burgundy,  but  a  fizz  and  an  up- 
streaming  of  golden  bubbles,  and  when  the  spirit 
had  effervesced  the  residue,  as  in  his  later  writ 
ings,  was  rather  flat. 

During  his  stay  abroad  he  made  a  few  other 
contributions  to  literature  which  have  not  yet 
been  mentioned.  Among  these  were  some  mis 
cellaneous  papers  in  the  "  Mirror  "  :  "  Notes 


216  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

from  a  Scrap  Book  "  and  "  Fragments  of  Ram 
bling  Impressions,"  portions  of  which  he  after 
wards  republished  in  "  Ephemera."  Also  a  short 
tale  of  no  value,  "  The  Dilemma,"  from  which 
he  rescued  the  verses  "•  To  Ermengarde  "  for 
his  collected  poems.  He  contributed  to  the 
London  "  Athena3um  "  for  January  and  Febru 
ary,  1835,  a  series  of  four  articles  on  American 
literature,  which  do  not  appear  in  his  "  Complete 
Works."  That  pioneer  of  literature  in  the  West, 
the  Rev.  Timothy  Flint,  some  time  editor  of  the 
"  Cincinnati  Monthly  Review,"  author  of  a  novel 
called  "Francis  Berrian,"  and  of  a  work  on  the 
Mississippi  Valley,  had  agreed  to  supply  the 
required  papers,  but  he  having  left  New  York 
for  Louisiana  Territory,  and  failed  to  come  to 
time,  Willis  was  invited  to  take  his  place.  He 
wrote  the  articles  hastily,  though  he  asserted 
that  he  had  "  read  the  productions  of  two  hun 
dred  poets  and  seventy-two  prose  writers  whose 
works  have  been  printed  in  America  since  the 
settlement  of  New  England."  He  made  no  ap 
proach  to  an  exhaustive  treatment  of  the  subject., 
but  gave  a  number  of  graphic  personal  sketches 
of  American  authors,  one  in  particular,  of  Chan- 
ning  as  a  pulpit  orator,  which  excited  Lady 
Byron's  interest,  as  has  been  mentioned,  and 
another  of  Cooper,  whom  he  indignantly  de 
fended  against  the  slanders  or  a  portion  of  the 


LIFE  ABROAD.  217 

American  press.  The  literary  judgments  are 
not  always  sound  (Poe  said  that  Willis  had 
good  taste,  but  was  not  a  good  critic),  but  they 
were  the  current  opinions  of  the  day  rather  than 
of  Willis  individually.  They  were  in  the  air. 
Thus  he  pronounces  Bryant's  "  Evening  Wind  " 
the  best  thing  he  had  written,  and  prefers  Per- 
cival  to  Bryant,  saying  that  he  is  "the  most 
interesting  man  in  America.  He  has  not  writ 
ten  anything  equal  to  the  'Evening  Wind'  of 
Bryant,  but  his  birthright  lies  a  thousand  leagues 
higher  up  Parnassus."  Timothy  Flint  after 
wards  supplemented  these  papers  by  a  dozen  of 
his  own,  which  amply  made  up  in  heaviness  for 
any  want  of  ballast  in  Willis's,  and  were  full 
of  "  general  views,"  which,  if  not  correct,  were 
harmless  because  unreadable.  Willis's  "Athe 
naeum  "  articles  first  introduced  the  English  pub 
lic  to  "  The  Culprit  Fay,"  long  passages  of  which 
he  gave  from  a  manuscript  in  his  possession,  the 
poem  having  not  as  yet  appeared  in  print.  Miss 
Mitford,  who  took  a  warm  interest  in  American 
literature,  wrote  him  a  note  of  thanks  on  the 
publication  of  this  series,  praising  it  in  the  high 
est  terms. 

It  appears  by  a  letter  to  Willis  from  Carl 
August,  Freiherr  von  Killinger,  dated  Carlsruhe, 
April  13,  1836,  that  some  of  the  "Inklings" 
had  already  attained  to  the  honors  of  translation. 


218  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

The  Freiherr,  it  seems,  was  engaged  in  translat 
ing  "  Pencillings  "  also,  and  wanted  material  for 
a  biographical  notice. 

"  To  the  author  of  the  '  Slingsby  Papers/  "  he  wrote, 
"  It  is,  perhaps,  flattering  to  hear  that  his  *  Lunatic,' 
his  '  Incidents  on  the  Hudson,'  '  Adventures  on  the 
Green  Mountains,' l  his  '  Niagara  and  So  Forth,'  etc., 
etc.,  which  I  had  translated  into  a  little  periodical  of 
mine,  or,  rather,  a  choice  coUection  of  interesting  ar 
ticles  from  English  periodicals  and  annuals,  have  been 
read  with  much  interest,  and  repeatedly  been  re 
printed  in  Germany.  ...  I  could  wish  to  be  favored 
by  you  with  some  biographical  notices  of  your  own 
in  token,  as  it  were,  of  your  consentment  to  my  trans- 
latory  attempt." 

1  Not  written  bv  Willis. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

1836-1845. 

GLENMARY —  THE  CORSAIR  —  THE  NEW  MIRROR. 

WILLIS  was  now  fully  committed  to  the  pro 
fession  of  letters,  but  he  wished  to  connect  it 
with  foreign  residence,  if  possible.  His  sojourn 
abroad  had  been  pleasant  and  successful,  and 
when  he  sailed  for  home  it  was  with  a  strong  ex 
pectation  of  returning  before  long  to  the  Old 
World  in  some  diplomatic  capacity.  This  hope 
he  did  not  cease  to  entertain  for  several  years. 
In  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Skinner,  written  from  Niagara 
October  12, 1836,  he  said  that  he  had  missed  the 
secretaryship  to  France  by  a  hand's-breadth,  and 
that  he  wanted  the  next  diplomatic  mission  that 
turned  up  ;  that  the  climate  of  the  United  States 
did  not  agree  either  with  him  or  with  Mrs.  Wil 
lis  ;  that  he  was  constantly  subject  to  the  rheu 
matism,  etc.  During  the  winter  of  1836-37, 
while  in  Washington,  he  made  interest  to  secure 
the  post  of  secretary  of  legation  at  St.  Peters 
burg,  with  the  view  of  writing  a  book  011  Rus 
sia,  but  Mr.  Dallas,  the  newly-appointed  minister 


220  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

to  that  country,  had  promised  the  place  to  a 
kinsman.  Later,  in  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Willis  at 
Glenmary,  written  from  Boston,  where  he  had 
just  met  Sumner  and  Longfellow  and  was  about 
to  dine  with  the  latter,  he  speaks  of  a  letter 
from  a  friend  who  says  that  the  President  had 
told  him  that  "  no  young  man  in  Washington 
had  impressed  him  so  favorably.  It  looks  like 
going  abroad,"  he  adds,  "  and  not  for  six  or 
nine  months  merely."  This  letter  is  dated  sim 
ply  "  February,"  but  was  written,  probably,  in 
1842,  during  Tyler's  administration.  To  the 
same  year,  doubtless,  may  be  referred  another, 
dated  at  New  York,  July  9th,  in  which  he  speaks 
of  having  made  the  rounds  of  the  men-of-war  in 
the  harbor  with  John  Tyler,  the  President's  son, 
"  who  seems  very  much  my  friend,"  and  of  being 
invited  to  dinner  by  Dakin,  to  meet  Tyler,  Hal- 
leek,  and  Bryant.  "  A  politician,"  he  says,  tells 
him  that  he  will  be  appointed  abroad  soon. 
These  hopes  were  all  doomed  to  disappointment, 
and  to  the  end  of  his  career  his  pen  was  destined 
to  be  his  best  reliance. 

The  first  few  months  after  his  return  to  Amer 
ica  were  spent  in  visiting  his  home  and  friends, 
and  in  presenting  his  young  English  bride  to  her 
new  relatives.  He  stayed  some  time  at  the  Astor 
House,  in  New  York,  then  newly  opened  under 
the  hosting  of  the  genial  Stetson,  and  regarded 


GLEN  MARY.  221 

as  the  greatest  wonder  on  the  continent  in  the 
way  of  metropolitan  caravansaries.  On  Septem 
ber  20th  he  signed  an  agreement  with  the  agent 
of  George  Virtue,  the  London  publisher,  to  fur 
nish  the  letterpress  for  a  big  illustrated  work  on 
American  scenery,  the  drawings  for  which  were 
to  be  supplied  by  Bartlett,  the  English  artist,  who 
was  then  in  America  for  the  purpose.  The  work 
was  to  come  out  in  monthly  numbers,  each  con 
taining  four  plates  and  eight  pages  of  letter 
press,  and  Willis  was  to  receive  fifteen  guineas 
a  number.  The  first  installment,  containing  de 
scriptions  of  twenty  drawings,  was  to  be  ready 
November  1st.  It  was  in  pursuance  of  this 
agreement  that  Willis  went  to  Niagara  in  the 
autumn  of  1836,  retracing  ground  which  he  had 
visited  eight  years  before.  A  part  of  the  winter 
of  1836-37  and  the  early  spring  of  1837  he 
passed  in  Washington,  whence  he  contributed 
to  the  "  Mirror "  the  four  letters  afterwards 
included  in  "  Sketches  of  Travel."  He  found 
Washington  society  agreeable,  and  Mrs.  Willis 
was  greatly  admired  and  became  an  especial 
favorite  with  Henry  Clay.  But  the  national 
capital  was  then  a  raw,  straggling  town,  built, 
said  Willis,  "  to  please  nobody  on  earth  but  a 
hackney  coachman."  It  had  not  begun  to  grow 
up  to  the  ambitious  plan  on  which  it  was  pro 
jected,  and  there  was  a  ludicrous  contrast  be' 


222  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

tween  the  wide,  radiating  avenues,  with  their 
imposing  public  buildings  scattered  here  and 
there,  and  the  wastes  between,  dotted  at  inter 
vals  with  naked  brick  houses  or  mean  negro 
cabins.  The  large  shifting  population,  which 
fled  as  soon  as  Congress  rose,  lodged  uncomfort 
ably  in  hotels  and  boarding-houses.  In  short, 
Washington  was  a  dismal  place  to  live  in.  Wil 
lis  set  his  practiced  observation  at  work  to  de 
scribe  the  picturesque  and  humorous  social  as 
pects  of  this  unfinished  city.  He  never  took 
more  than  the  most  casual  interest  in  politics, 
but  he  lounged  about  the  rotunda  and  lobbies  of 
the  Capitol,  climbed  up  into  the  stifling  galleries 
of  the  old  House  and  Senate  chambers,  whence 
the  ladies'  toilets  could  be  observed,  though  the 
voices  of  speakers  on  the  floor,  owing  to  the 
acoustic  defects  in  the  building,  reached  the  ear 
"  as  articulate  as  water  from  a  narrow-necked 
bottle."  He  was  present  at  Van  Buren's  inau 
guration,  went  to  a  levee  at  the  White  House,  and 
to  a  dinner  with  Power  the  comedian,  at  which 
several  Indian  chiefs  were  present  who  behaved 
in  an  extraordinary  manner.  In  the  summer  of 
1837  he  traveled  about  with  Bartlett,  who  was 
making  his  sketches  for  "  American  Scenery." 
In  the  course  of  these  peregrinations  he  found  a 
lovely  spot  on  the  banks  of  Owego  Creek  near 
its  junction  with  the  Susquehanna,  which  so 


GLEN  MARY.  223 

took  his  fancy  that  he  decided  to  pitch  his  tent 
there.  He  bought  from  his  college  friend  Pum- 
pelly,  who  lived  near  by,  a  domain  of  some  two 
hundred  acres,  which  he  named  Glenmary,  in 
honor  of  his  wife,  and  there  in  the  fall  of  1837 
he  set  up  his  household  gods.  In  his  paper  on 
"  The  Four  Rivers,"  contributed  to  one  of  the 
September  "  Mirrors  "  of  that  year,  he  thus  an 
nounces  his  discovery :  — 

"  Owego  Creek  should  have  a  prettier  name,  for 
its  small  vale  is  the  soul  and  essence  of  loveliness. 
A  meadow  of  a  mile  in  breadth,  fertile,  soft,  and 
sprinkled  with  stately  trees,  furnishes  a  bed  for  its 
swift  windings ;  and  from  the  edge  of  this  new 
Tempe,  on  the  southern  side,  rise  three  steppes  or 
natural  terraces,  over  the  highest  of  which  the  forest 
rears  its  head,  and  looks  in  upon  the  meeting  of  the 
rivers  ;  while  down  the  sides,  terrace  by  terrace,  leap 
the  small  streamlets  from  the  mountain  springs,  form 
ing  each  again  its  own  smaller  dimple  in  this  loveliest 
face  of  Nature.  .  .  .  Here  would  I  have  a  home  ! 
Give  me  a  cottage  by  one  of  these  shining  stream' 
lets,  upon  one  of  these  terraces  that  seem  steps  to 
Olympus,  and  let  me  ramble  over  these  mountain 
sides,  while  my  flowers  are  growing  and  my  head  sil 
vering  in  tranquil  happiness." 

In  this  secluded  Arcadia  his  Penates  had  rest 
for  five  years,  and  hence  he  wrote  his  "  A  1' Abri, 
or  the  Tent  Pitched,"  contributed  to  the  "  Mir- 


224  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

ror "  as  "  Letters  from  under  a  Bridge,"  the 
first  one  appearing  July  7,  1838.  This  is  Wil 
lis's  happiest  book,  and  reflects  the  happiest  part 
of  his  life.  There  was  a  side  of  him  which 
turned  gladly  to  rural  repose  and  simple  house 
hold  pleasures.  He  imagined  it  to  be  "  the  kind 
of  life  best  suited  to  his  disposition  as  well  as  to 
his  better  nature,"  and  it  had  at  the  time  the 
zest  of  novelty.  For  the  last  five  years  he  had 
been  a  vagabond  "  in  the  gayest  circles  of  the 
gayest  cities  in  the  world." 

"  There  is  a  curious  fact,"  he  writes,  "  I  have 
learned  for  the  first  time  in  this  wild  country ;  that, 
as  the  forest  is  cleared,  new  springs  rise  to  the  sur 
face  of  the  ground,  as  if  at  the  touch  of  the  sun 
shine.  .  .  .  You  have  yourself  been  in  your  day,  dear 
doctor,  '  a  warped  slip  of  wilderness,'  and  will  see 
at  once  that  there  lies  in  this  ordinance  of  nature  a 
beautiful  analogy  to  certain  moral  changes  that  come 
in  upon  the  heels  of  more  cultivated  and  thoughtful 
manhood.  There  is  no  divining-rod  whose  dip  shall 
tell  us  at  twenty  what  we  shall  most  relish  at  thirty. 
.  .  .  You  can  scarce  understand  with  what  pleasure 
I  find  this  new  spring  in  my  path,  the  content  with 
which  I  admit  the  conviction  that,  without  effort  or 
self-denial,  the  mind  will  slake  its  thirst  and  the  heart 
be  satisfied  with  but  the  waste  of  what  lies  so  near 
us." 

The  "  dear  doctor  "  to  whom  these  letters  were 


GLEN  MARY.  225 

addressed  was  Dr.  T.  O.  Porter,  with  whom  their 
author  afterwards  formed  a  literary  partnership. 
The  little  bridge  under  which  they  were  written, 
with  its  stone  seat,  its  "  floor  of  running  water," 
its  nest  of  swallows,  and  its  diminutive  fresh 
water  lobster  —  which  reminded  Willis  of  Tal 
leyrand  —  deserves  remembering  with  Pope's 
famous  grotto  at  Twickenham.  Like  Cowley, 
Willis  acknowledged  himself  fond  of  little 
things.  He  disliked  the  ocean  and  great  rivers, 
—  though  he  finally  came  to  live  on  the  banks 
of  one.  He  loved  small  streams  and  narrow 
valleys.  The  lawny,  homelike  scenery  of  the 
Owego  was  just  suited  to  his  taste.  Above  all 
things  in  nature,  he  delighted  in  running  water, 
which  had  an  affinity  with  his  own  lively  and 
sparkling  temper.  "  A  1'Abri "  was,  and  remains, 
a  thoroughly  enjoyable  book,  chatty,  pleasantly 
digressive,  and  filled  with  sunshine  and  the  air 
of  out-doors.  It  must  be  confessed  that  Willis 
was  something  of  a  cockney  in  the  presence  of 
great  Nature.  He  viewed  her  more  as  a  land 
scape  gardener  than  as  a  naturalist.  He  had  not 
the  intense  passion  for  her,  the  rapt  communion 
with  her,  of  elect  spirits  like  Wordsworth  and 
Thoreau.  She  furnished  him  rather  with  a  hun 
dred  pretty  and  playful  analogies,  a  hundred 
texts  for  little  sermons  on  cheerfulness  and  con 
tent,  in  which  he  rode  his  fancy  sometimes  too 

15 


226  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

far  and  let  his  sentiment  answer  too  quickly  to 
trifling  provocations.  He  must  have  been  but  an 
amateurish  farmer,  too,  ordering  his  breakfast 
served  under  a  balsam  fir,  and  selling  his  crops 
"for  the  oddity  of  the  sensation."  Naturally,  ex 
cept  in  literary  harvests,  his  farm  did  not  pay, 
though  he  was  always  exclaiming  with  grateful 
surprise  at  the  bounty  of  nature  in  yielding  him 
actual  buckwheat,  in  addition  to  the  health, 
amusement,  and  moral  lessons  derived  in  the 
process  of  cultivating  that  interesting  grain.  One 
suspects  that  he  grew  more  flowers  of  speech 
than  any  grosser  product  from  his  two  hundred 
acres.  If  the  crows  ate  his  corn  in  the  blade,  he 
merely  philosophized,  "  Think  what  times  we  live 
in,  when  even  the  crows  are  obliged  to  anticipate 
their  income !  "  If  the  red  heifer  chewed  up  a 
lace  cape  bleaching  on  the  lawn,  he  humorously 
excused  the  heifer  on  account  of  the  drought. 
If  the  boys  reported  that  the  deer  were  browsing 
in  troops  on  his  buckwheat,  by  the  light  of  the 
moon,  he  answered,  "  Let  them !  "  One  is  re 
minded  by  this  last  discouragement  to  agriculture 
that  Owego  was  still  in  the  backwoods.  Some 
of  the  most  interesting  passages  in  the  letters 
describe  the  wild  life  of  the  lumbermen,  whose 
rafts  glided  past  the  Glenmary  meadows  "  like  a 
singing  and  swearing  phantom  of  an  unfinished 
barn,"  and  whose  fires  by  night  lit  up  the  bends 


GLEN  MARY.  227 

of  the  Susquehanna,  where  their  huge  flotillas 
lay  moored.  Willis  once  descended  the  river  on 
the  top  of  a  freshet  in  a  steamboat  of  light 
draught,  but  his  usual  way  of  coming  and  going 
was  by  stage  over  very  rough  roads,  the  Erie  rail 
way  having  not  as  yet  penetrated  those  solitudes. 
Another  picturesque  feature  of  the  neighbor 
hood  were  the  forest  fires,  the  "  blazing  and  in 
numerable  pillars  swept  by  the  wind  till  they 
stood  in  still  and  naked  redness,  while  the  eye 
could  see  far  into  their  depths."  This  phenom 
enon  furnished  a  vivid  description  for  his  story, 
"The  Picker  and  Filer,"  contributed  to  the 
"Corsair"  of  March  16,  1839,  and  to. the  April 
number  of  the  "  New  Monthly "  for  the  same 
year,  the  plot  of  which  seems  to  have  been  fur 
nished  him  by  Rand,  the  portrait  painter,  to 
whom  Willis  sat  in  London  in  1835,  and  who 
regaled  him  during  the  sittings  with  stories  of 
wild  adventure.  Willis  kept  up  communication 
with  the  great  world  by  frequent  trips  to  New 
York,  and  by  frequent  visits  from  his  metropoli 
tan  friends  to  Glenmary.  Neither  was  he  by 
any  means  cut  off  from  civilization  at  home. 
He  explains  to  the  doctor  in  one  of  his  letters 
that  Owego,  two  miles  away,  and  even  the  vil 
lage  of  Canewana,  a  mile  nearer,  are  within  the 
latitude  of  silver  forks  and  their  accompanying 
vanities,  morning  calls,  cards,  dinner  giving, 


228  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

champagne,  and  French  bonnets.  K.  H.  Stod- 
dard,  the  poet,  who  visited  Glenmary  in  the  fall 
of  1841,  with  Mr.  Mackay,  a  congressman  from 
New  York,  has  given  a  pleasant  reminiscence  of 
his  pilgrimage,  from  which  I  quote  the  following 
interior :  — 

"  The  cottage,"  he  says,  "  had  within  it  and  about 
it  the  evidences  of  a  subtle,  nice,  clear  refinement ;  of 
a  thought  that,  even  out  of  the  solitude  of  a  rural  life, 
could  frame  the  pleasant  things  that  make  the  four 
and  twenty  hours  turn  to  soft  and  kindly  ways.  .  .  . 
Mr.  Willis  opened  the  door,  received  us  cordially ; 
and  we  found,  in  his  conversation  and  in  such  obser 
vation  of  all  around  us  as  a  guest  might  in  propriety 
make,  the  hours  of  the  evening  as  brilliant  in-doors 
as  without.  That  thoroughly  well-bred  lady,  so  un 
pretending  and  gentle,  was  at  the  table  ;  at  her  feet, 
a  large  greyhound.  On  the  side  table  stood  a  large 
tulip-shaped  vase  of  stained  glass,  whose  burden  was, 
of  course,  bright  flowers.  There  was  everywhere 
copious  evidence  that  it  was  a  home  for  literature. 
The  books  were  abundant  and  were  gayly  set.  .  .  . 
And  there  was  a  miniature  of  lovely  Mrs.  Willis.  It 
was  painted  by  Saunders,  who  had  been  a  pet  of  the 
King  of  Hanover.  His  exquisite  work  deserved  the 
smile  of  royalty  and,  what  is  better,  of  beauty. 
Amidst  such  scenes  and  the  conversation  which  came 
of  such  associations,  our  night  went  on.  We  left  the 
lawn  of  Glenmary  with  the  memories  of  a  night  of 
romance.  .  .  .  Mr.  Willis  belonged  to  a  past  school 


GLEN  MARY.  229 

of  men.  He  had  the  ways  and  tastes  of  a  more 
isolated  and  restricted  society  than  belongs  to  our 
day,  when  fortunes  are  fusing  men  and  manners 
into  one  great  glittering  ball  that  rolls  through  the 
year,  before  us  and  over  us  ;  but  Mr.  Willis  —  whether 
in  his  early  days,  when  the  prince  regent  ruled,  or 
in  our  day,  when  we  all  rule,  monarchs  of  ephemera 
—  was  an  author  whose  writings  have  added  to  what 
Doctor  Johnson  calls  'the  gayety  of  mankind.'  He 
believed  them  better  and  higher  and  more  philosoph 
ical  than  this  ;  and  I  believe  there  was  truth  and 
right  in  his  thought." 

The  "  Letters  from  Under  a  Bridge  "  are  so 
heartsome  in  feeling  and  so  much  mellower  and 
more  leisurely  in  style  than  Willis's  later  work, 
that  one  naturally  speculates,  in  reading  them, 
as  to  what  might  have  been  the  effect  upon  his 
literary  product  had  fortune  granted  his  wish, 
to  be  allowed  to  end  his  days  at  Glenmary. 
Would  study  and  the  quiet  of  nature  have  rip 
ened  it  to  something  deeper  and  richer  than 
anything  that  he  has  left  ?  Or  would  he  have 
grown  rusty  with  absence  from  the  stir  of  cities 
and  the  gay  society  that  had  hitherto  seemed 
his  congenial  element  ?  It  is  impossible  to  an 
swer  this  question  with  confidence.  Undoubtedly 
his  later  work  would  have  been  other  and  better 
than  it  was  if  he  had  had  the  time  to  select 
and  condense.  He  would  have  written  more 


230  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

and  scribbled  less.  But  whether  he  would  ever 
have  excelled  the  best  parts  of  his  earlier  writ 
ings  is  doubtful.  His  talent  was  of  the  kind 
which  discipline  does  not  always  improve.  It 
was  the  expression  of  his  temperament,  fresh, 
facile,  spontaneous,  but  impatient  of  continu 
ance.  He  was  best  at  a  dash  —  a  sketch,  or  a 
short  tale.  His  gift  was  of  the  sort  that  shows 
more  gracefully  in  youth  than  age.  Idem  ma- 
nebat  neque  idem  decebat.  It  is  not  improba 
ble  that,  even  under  the  most  favoring  condi 
tions,  he  would  have  kept  on  writing  Jottings, 
Loiterings,  Hurrygraphs,  etc.,  lacking,  as  he 
evidently  did,  the  power  of  construction  re 
quired  for  a  large  and  serious  work.  Biit  this 
speculation  is  perhaps  an  idle  one.  Whether 
or  not  it  lay  in  his  nature  to  sing  or  to  say 
that  "  something  "  of  which  Ben  Jonson  tells, 
"  that  must  and  shall  be  sung  high  and  aloof," 
fate  denied  him  the  proof.  His  necessities 
drove  him  back  to  the  city  and  the  editor's 
chair,  to  write  hastily  and  incessantly  for  a 
livelihood.  Possibly  the  finer  work  might  have 
shaped  itself  in  silence,  but  "  not  in  these 
noises."  Meanwhile  his  present  content  found 
utterance  in  his  "  Reverie  at  Glenmary,"  —  a 
single  breath  of  gratitude  to  God,  —  the  most 
sincerely  devout  of  all  his  religious  poems,  and 
pathetic  when  one  reflects  how  soon  the  shel- 


GLENMARY.  231 

tered  happiness  for  which  it  gives  thanks  was  to 
pass  away. 

Not  long  after  his  return  to  America,  he  had 
begun  to  try  his  hand  at  play  writing.  The 
"  Mirror  "  of  August  19,  1837,  gave  passages 
from  a  five  act  tragedy  that  he  had  lately  com 
pleted,  "  Bianca  Visconti,  or  the  Heart  Over 
tasked,"  with  the  announcement  that  it  was  to 
be  acted  at  the  Park  Theatre  on  the  24th 
instant.  It  was  founded  upon  the  life  of 
Francesco  Sforza,  a  soldier  of  fortune  in  the 
fourteenth  century,  who  obtained  the  hand  of 
Bianca,  daughter  to  the  Duke  of  Milan,  and 
thereby  succeeded  to  the  duchy.  The  play  was 
composed  expressly  for  Josephine  Clifton,  a 
popular  actress  of  some  talent,  and  of  great 
physical  force  and  beauty  of  the  large,  queenly 
type,  who  took  the  part  of  the  heroine.  The 
rdle  of  Pasquali,  "  a  whimsical  poet,"  was  writ 
ten  for  Harry  Placide,  a  favorite  player  in  his 
generation,  whose  "Grandfather  Whitehead " 
and  other  impersonations,  humorous  or  pathetic, 
are  still  affectionately  remembered  by  old  play 
goers.  When  this  tragedy  was  published  in  the 
spring  of  1839,  with  some  changes  in  the  fifth 
act,  the  "  Mirror "  declared  that  its  success 
upon  the  stage  had  been  complete.  This  was 
an  overstatement,  but  whatever  partial  success 
or  qualified  failure  it  may  have  met  with  on  its 


232  NATHANIEL  PARKER    WILLIS. 

first  representation,  Willis  felt  sufficiently  en 
couraged  to  persevere  in  his  dramatic  experi 
ments.  In  a  private  letter  from  New  York, 
December  15,  1838,  he  said  that  Colnian  had 
just  given  him  $300  for  an  edition  of  "•  Bian- 
ca,"  which  he  considered  a  good  price,  as  Epes 
Sargent  had  sold  his  "  Yelasco  "  for  $60.  Wai- 
lack,  he  continues,  who  managed  the  National, 
the  rival  theatre  to  the  Park,  was  full  of  ad 
miration  of  it,  and  was  coming  to  see  the  whole 
play  rehearsed.  Willis  was  going  to  charge 
him  $1,000  for  the  use  of  it,  and  a  benefit 
which,  he  calculated,  would  be  equal  to  from 
$500  to  $700  more.  On  the  1st  of  Septem 
ber,  1837,  just  after  the  first  representation  of 
"  Bianca "  at  the  Park,  Willis  entered  into  an 
agreement  with  its  manager,  Turner  Merritt,  by 
which  the  latter  agreed  to  pay  him  $1,000,  one 
year  from  date,  provided  he  should  write  a 
comedy  for  Miss  Clifton,  pronounced  successful 
by  her  after  three  months'  acting.  In  pur 
suance  of  this  agreement,  he  had  ready  in  two 
months  "  The  Betrothal,"  a  comedy,  which  was 
announced  in  the  "  Mirror  "  of  November  25th 
as  to  be  acted  at  the  Park  on  the  Monday  fol 
lowing.  The  notice  added  that  the  play  would 
probably  take  with  the  public,  as  it  had  pleased 
the  actors,  —  a  good  criterion.  "  The  Betroth 
al,"  however,  was  unequivocally  damned,  much 


GLEN  MARY.  233 

to  Willis's  mortification,  though  not  to  his  per 
manent  discouragement.  The  text  of  this  play 
was  never  published,  nor  was  that  of  another 
comedy,  "  Imei,  the  Jew,"  with  which  he  was 
busy  in  January,  1839,  and  of  which  he  seems 
to  have  finished  only  a  few  scenes.  Rumors 
were  in  circulation  that  Willis  had  sued  Miss 
Clifton  for  failing  to  complete  the  engagement 
in  the  matter  of  "The  Betrothal,"  but  these 
were  officially  contradicted  in  the  "  Mirror." 
He  had  better  luck  with  another  comedy,  suc 
cessively  entitled  "  Dying  for  Him,"  "  The 
Usurer  Matched,"  and  "  Tortesa  the  Usurer," 
based  on  the  Florentine  story  of  Genevra 
d'Amori  and  written  with  more  care  than 
his  two  previous  attempts.  He  prepared  the 
way  for  its  representation  by  printing  four  in 
stallments  of  it  in  the  "  Mirror ; "  and  about  a 
year  after  the  first  of  these  appeared  it  was 
put  on  at  the  National,  April  8,  1839,  with 
Wallack  cast  for  Tortesa,  the  principal  char 
acter.  It  ran  four  times  the  first  week,  and 
kept  the  stage  to  the  20th,  "  being  received," 
said  the  "Mirror,"  "with  acclamations  by  one 
of  the  most  crowded  and  fashionable  audiences 
ever  assembled  within  the  walls  of  a  theatre." 
In  spite  of  this  glowing  language,  "  Tortesa " 
seems  to  have  had  a  succes  (Testime  merely. 
Wallack  had  agreed  to  pay  the  author  one  half 


234  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

the  proceeds  of  the  fourth,  ninth,  thirteenth,  and 
eighteenth  nights,  after  deducting  $300  each 
night  for  expenses.  If  it  was  produced  in  Eng 
land,  Willis  was  to  have  one  third  of  the  pro 
ceeds  of  the  fourth,  eighth,  and  twelfth  per 
formances  there.  Wallack  did  bring  it  out 
at  the  Surrey  Theatre  in  London,  in  August  of 
this  same  year.  Willis  was  in  England  at  the 
time  and  wrote  to  Dr.  Porter  that  it  had  had 
"a  splendid  run  —  crammed  houses  every  night." 
It  shared  the  honors  of  the  "  first  night "  with 
Willis's  old  adversary,  Captain  Marryat,  whose 
"  Phantom  Ship  "  was  the  afterpiece.  All  this 
brought  the  author  nothing  but  empty  glory,  as 
Wallack  was  distressed  for  money  and  could 
not  afford  to  pay  him  his  one  third  share  of  the 
profits.  "  So  I  gave  it  up,"  wrote  Willis,  "  and 
he  pocketed  the  whole.  By  the  way,"  he  adds, 
"  I  have  two  more  nights  at  the  National  which 
I  authorize  you  to  look  after  and  receive  for  me. 
The  thirteenth  and  eighteenth  representations 
remain  for  me.  Will  you  see  if  you  can  get 
Kean  or  Yandenhoff  in  for  Angelo  on  those 
nights  ?  I  have  seen  a  great  deal  of  Kean 
since  I  have  been  here,  and  he  is  truly  a  good 
fellow  and  a  great  actor.  He  breakfasted  with 
us  a  day  or  two  ago  and  Mary  was  very  much 
interested  that  he  should  do  well  in  America. 
I  have  given  Vandenhoff  '  Bianca '  for  himself 


GLEN  MARY.  235 

and  daughter  to  play  in  America.    She  is  a  fine, 
handsome  girl,  but  I  have  not  seen  her  play." 

These  two  plays  of  Willis  did  not  add  many 
leaves  to  his  laurels.  His  genius  was  undra- 
matic;  in  his  stories  the  dramatic  element  is 
not  the  most  pronounced.  Both  "  Bianca  "  and 
"  Tortesa "  have  passages  which  are  good  as 
poetry  or  declamation,  and  here  and  there  oc 
cur  bits  of  spirited  dialogue ;  but  in  general  the 
characters  are  only  half  vitalized,  the  situations 
are  not  firmly  grasped  and  presented,  and  the 
language  is  stilted.  In  short,  they  are  book 
plays  merely,  with  nothing  to  distinguish  them 
from  the  numerous  experiments  of  other  Amer 
ican  literary  gentlemen  who  have  essayed  to 
feed  the  stage  with  manuscripts  from  their 
library  tables.  In  "  Bianca  Visconti  "  the  main 
situation  —  the  heroine's  connivance  at  her 
brother's  murder,  in  order  that  her  husband 
might  become  Duke  of  Milan  —  is  strongly 
imagined  but  feebly  carried  out.  One  cannot 
help  thinking  how  Victor  Hugo,  for  instance, 
would  have  dealt  with  this  motive.  "  Tortesa 
the  Usurer  "  seems  to  be  made  up  of  hints  from 
Shakespeare.  The  hero  has  some  slight  resem 
blance  to  Shylock ;  the  heroine  drinks  a  sleep 
ing  potion,  like  Juliet,  to  escape  an  odious  mar 
riage  ;  and  in  the  last  act,  .which  is  constructed 
with  some  skill,  she  stands  in  the  frame  of  a 


236  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

picture,   like   Hermione   in    "  Winter's    Tale," 
though  with  a  different  purpose. 

Willis's  official  connection  with  the  "New 
York  Mirror  "  had  stopped  with  the  termination 
of  his  "  Pencillings,"  and  after  January  16, 1836, 
his  name  ceased  to  appear  at  the  head  of  the 
editorial  column.  His  contributions,  however, 
as  we  have  seen,  went  on,  and  included  not  only 
"  Letters  from  Under  a  Bridge,"  but  poems  and 
miscellaneous  correspondence,  besides  a  half 
dozen  of  stories,  afterwards  collected  in  "  Ro 
mance  of  Travel."  The  verse  contributions 
were  added  to  the  American  edition  of  "  Me- 
lanie,"  1837,  which  contained  a  number  of  things 
written  since  the  appearance  of  the  English 
edition  two  years  previous.  Notable  among 
these  were  "  Lines  on  Leaving  Europe,"  "  To  a 
Face  Beloved,"  —  both  of  which  have  been  men 
tioned,  — "  To  Ermengarde,"  and  a  song-like 
little  piece  entitled  "  Spring,"  the  opening  lines 
of  which  are  especially  Willisy  :  — 

"  The  Spring  is  here,  the  delicate -footed  May, 

With  its  slight  fingers  full  of  leaves  and  flowers ; 
And  with  it  comes  a  thirst  to  be  away, 
Wasting  in  wood-paths  its  voluptuous  hours." 

There  are  evidences  in  Willis's  private  corre 
spondence,  about  this  time,  of  some  coolness  be 
tween  himself  and  General  Morris,  which  appears 
to  have  originated,  or  perhaps  to  have  found 


GLEN  MARY.  237 

expression  in  a  series  of  three  letters  signed 
"  Veritas,"  written  from  London  and  printed  in 
the  "  Mirror,"  in  the  fall  of  1838.  These  letters, 
after  taking  the  "  Mirror  "  to  task  for  mislead 
ing  the  American  public  by  the  false  pictures  of 
London  society  given  in  the  "  Pencillings,"  pro 
ceeded  to  set  its  readers  right,  in  a  series  of  the 
coarsest  and  most  slanderous  little  biographies 
of  English  men  and  women  of  letters,  retailing 
with  unction  all  the  gossip  of  the  clubs  about 
Lady  Blessington,  Count  d'Orsay,  the  Bulwers, 
Disraeli,  Mrs.  Norton,  Miss  Landon,  Eraser,  and 
many  others.  Some  of  these  had  been  Willis's 
friends ;  others  he  had  never  met ;  but  he  wrote 
an  indignant  rejoinder  to  the  "  Mirror  "  of  No 
vember  10th,  denying,  out  and  out,  many  of  the 
lies  in  "  Veritas' s  "  communication,  and  explain 
ing  away  some  of  the  misrepresentations  and  ex 
aggerations.  This  letter  Morris  prefaced  with  an 
editorial  note  in  which  he  said  that  he  had  been 
much  censured  on  account  of  the  "  Pencillings," 
and,  therefore,  "  the  object  of  these  letters  was  to 
disabuse  the  public  mind  in  this  country  of  what 
seemed  to  the  author  a  wrong  and  injurious  im 
pression  with  regard  to  the  position  in  English 
society  of  certain  distinguished  but  unworthy 
characters,  whose  example  and  many  of  whose 
writings  are  of  a  pernicious  tendency.  With 
one  or  two  exceptions,  we  believe  that  our  corre- 


238  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

spondent  has  merely  stated  well  attested  facts." 
One  of  these  exceptions  was  the  slander  upon 
Miss  Landon,  for  printing  which  Morris  apol 
ogized.  This  partial  indorsement  of  "  Veritas  " 
by  the  editor  naturally  displeased  Willis ;  and 
naturally,  too,  he  was  pleased  by  an  answer  to 
it  by  Dr.  Porter,  in  the  "  Spirit  of  the  Times," 
which  was  then  edited  by  his  brother,  William 
T.  Porter,  "the  tall  son  of  York,"  and  with 
which  Dr.  Porter  himself  was  editorially  con 
nected.  "  The  Skylight  letter,"  Willis  writes  to 
the  latter,  "  was  capitally  done,  and  the  '  Mir 
ror  '  was  touched  on  all  its  sore  places  to  a 
charm.  My  brother  was  in  New  York  just  after 
and  called  at  the  office,  and  the  fury  the  Gen 
eral  was  in  will  amuse  him  for  the  next  six 
months.  Morris  called  you  a  gallipot,  said  it 
was  a  poor  article,  and  will  hurt  your  paper,  and 
all  that ;  but  sits  down  and  writes  me  a  most 
affectionate  letter  of  four  foolscap  pages,  deny 
ing  all  possible  thought  of  me  in  the  London 
matter,  and  swearing  he  was  my  defender  and 
best  friend."  Elsewhere  in  his  correspondence 
with  Dr.  Porter,  Willis  expresses  some  doubts 
as  to  the  sincerity  of  Morris's  friendship,  and 
seems  to  suspect  that  it  was  more  than  half  pol 
icy  and  a  desire  to  exploit  him.  It  does  not  ap 
pear  that  this  little  misunderstanding  ever  came 
to  a  breach.  The  "  Mirror  "  continued  most 


GLEN  MARY.  239 

courteous  in  its  tone  towards  Willis,  and  its  ed 
itor  became  and  remained,  till  his  death,  one  of 
his  closest  friends.  But  for  a  time  Willis  felt 
inclined  to  draw  off,  and  to  find  some  other  ave 
nue  through  which  to  address  his  public.  This 
feeling  took  shape  in  December,  1838,  in  his  ac 
ceptance  of  a  proposal  from  Dr.  Porter  to  join 
him  in  establishing  a  weekly  paper.  The  "  Cor 
sair,"  which  was  the  outcome  of  this  arrange 
ment,  was,  like  "  Brother  Jonathan  "  and  the 
"  New  World,"  one  of  the  crop  of  weeklies  which 
sprang  up  in  the  wake  of  the  first  transatlantic 
steamers.  On  May  19,  1838,  the  Great  West 
ern,  the  first  steam  vessel  that  had  crossed  the 
ocean,  weighed  anchor  in  New  York  harbor  for 
her  return  trip.  A  company  of  gentlemen, 
among  whom  were  Chevalier  Wikoff  and  Gen 
eral  Morris,  were  on  board  by  invitation  and  ac 
companied  the  ship  as  far  as  Sandy  Hook,  where 
they  were  taken  off  by  a  pilot.  It  may  perhaps 
have  occurred  to  the  general  at  the  time,  that 
here  was  what  would  work  a  change  in  the  con 
ditions  of  American  journalism.  It  was  now 
possible  to  get  the  freshest  supply  from  the  Lon 
don  literary  market  within  a  fortnight,  and  the 
news  of  Europe  before  it  was  cold.  Willis  and 
Porter  proposed  frankly  to  live  on  the  plunder 
of  this  foreign  harvest ;  and  since  there  was  no 
international  copyright,  to  raise  the  black  flag, 


240  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

and  take  reprisals  wherever  they  could  find 
them.  In  a  letter  to  his  intending  partner,  dated 
at  Owego,  Christmas  eve,  1838,  he  proposed  to 
call  their  venture  the  "  Pirate,"  and  sent  the 
following  draft  of  a  prospectus  :  — 

THE  PIRATE, 
A  GAZETTE  OF  LITERATURE,  FASHION,  AND    NOVELTY. 

T.  O.  Porter  and  N.  P.  Willis  propose  to  issue 
weekly,  in  the  city  of  New  York,  a  paper  of  the  above 
designation  and  character.  It  is  their  design,  as  ed 
itors,  to  present  as  amusing  a  paper  as  can  be  made 
from  the  current  wit,  humor,  and  literature  of  the 
world ;  to  give  dramatic  criticisms  without  fear  or  fa 
vor  ;  to  hold  up  the  age  in  its  fashions,  its  eccentrici 
ties,  and  its  amusements ;  to  take  advantage,  in  short, 
of  the  privilege  assured  to  us  by  our  piratical  law  of 
copyright ;  and  in  the  name  of  American  authors 
(for  our  own  benefit)  "  convey  "  to  our  columns,  for 
the  amusement  of  our  readers,  the  cream  and  spirit 
of  everything  that  ventures  to  light  in  France,  Eng 
land,  and  Germany.  As  to  original  American  pro 
ductions,  we  shall,  as  the  publishers  do,  take  what  we 
can  get  for  nothing  (that  is  good),  holding,  as  the 
publishers  do,  that  while  we  can  get  Boz  and  Bul- 
wer  for  a  thank-ye  or  less,  it  is  not  pocket-wise  to 
pay  much  for  Halleck  and  Irving. 

"  If  anybody  says  the  name  is  undignified,"  writes 
Willis,  "  tell  them  there  are  very  few  dignified  people 
in  the  world,  and  still  fewer  lovers  of  dignity,  and  by 


THE  CORSAIR.  241 

the  Lord,  we  must  live  by  the  many.  Then  again  we 
want  a  root,  a  reason,  a  rail,  a  runner  to  start  upon, 
and  this  bloody  copyright  will  answer  the  purpose. 
People  will  say,  '  Why,  damme,  Willis  can't  get  paid 
for  his  books  because  the  law  won't  protect  him,  so 
he  has  hauled  his  wind,  and  joined  the  people  that 
robbed  him.' " 

Willis  felt  very  bitterly  the  absence  of  an  in 
ternational  copyright.  By  the  act  of  1838,  the 
English  Parliament,  acting  in  self-defense,  had 
refused  to  protect  any  longer  the  literary  prop 
erty  of  American  authors,  until  America  should 
have  the  decency  to  reciprocate.  This  cut  double 
up6n  the  American  author.  It  deprived  him  of 
any  gain  from  the  circulation  of  his  writings  in 
England,  and  it  discouraged  native  literature 
by  flooding  this  country  with  cheap  reprints  of 
English  books,  for  the  copy  of  which  the  Amer 
ican  publisher  paid  nothing.  The  former  loss 
would  not  have  been  serious  to  many  American 
writers  at  that  date,  possibly  not  to  so  very 
many  even  now.  But  England  had  been  Willis's 
best  market,  literary  work  in  America  was 
wretchedly  paid,  and  he  saw  starvation  staring 
him  in  the  face. 

The  "  Pirate  "  was  finally  toned  down  into 
the  "Corsair,"  and  a  prospectus  which  was  a 
modification  of  the  one  drafted  by  Willis  in  the 
above  letter  was  printed  and  circulated  in  Jan- 

16 


242  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

uary,  1839.  He  sent  one  to  Henry  Clay,  and 
begged  him  to  mention  the  "  Corsair  "  in  his 
argument  on  the  copyright,  as  a  good  comment 
on  the  state  of  the  law.  Mr.  Clay  replied  in  a 
very  polite  letter,  giving  his  views  upon  the  copy 
right  question,  and  inclosing  his  subscription. 
The  office  of  the  "  Corsair  "  was  in  the  Astor 
House,  No.  8  Barclay  Street.  The  first  number 
was  published  March  15,  1839,  and  the  last 
(No.  52)  March  7,  1840.  At  the  head  of  the 
sheet  was  a  rakish  looking  craft  under  full  sail, 
and  Willis  led  off  with  a  truculent  editorial, 
"  The  Quarter  Deck  "  proclaiming  the  policy  of 
the  new  paper.  To  the  earlier  numbers  he  con 
tributed  art  notes  and  miscellaneous  chat,  "  The 
Pencil,"  "The  Gallery,"  "The  Divan,"  etc.; 
two  papers  on  autographs  ;  a  "  Letter  from  Un 
der  a  Bridge,"  a  generic  name  that  he  gave  to 
much  correspondence  about  this  time,  not  com 
prised  in  the  original  "  Letters  "  ;  some  reminis 
cences  of  Miss  Landon  as  "  The  Departed  Im- 
provisatrice,"  and  a  very  harsh  review,  "  Pauld- 
ing  the  Author  Disinterred."  This  last  was 
unlike  Willis,  who  was  almost  always  kind  in 
his  notices  of  brother  authors,  and  it  provoked 
much  unfavorable  comment,  particularly  a  re 
joinder  in  the  "  Courier  and  Enquirer,"  by  Col 
onel  James  Watson  Webb,  a  gentleman  who  af 
terwards  fell  foul  of  Willis  in  various  ways.  In 


THE   CORSAIR.  243 

this  article  he  held  him  up  to  scorn  as  a  writer 
"  who  revels  on  the  cut  of  a  coat  or  the  otto 
mans  of  a  lady's  boudoir,  and  delights  in  the 
soft  shades  of  a  glen ;  "  and  whose  works  were 
only  fit  to  "  make  the  papillotes  of  ladies' 
chambermaids."  Willis  had  an  unaffected  dis 
relish  for  Paulding's  writings,  which  he  thought 
coarse  and  pointless.  But  the  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  was  an  old  man,  whose  books  belonged  al 
ready  to  the  past,  and  it  was  ungracious  to  dis 
turb  his  age  with  taunts  about  their  obsoleteness. 
One  suspects,  in  reading  this  review,  that  its 
writer  had  some  personal  grudge  against  the  au 
thor  of  "  The  Dutchman's  Fireside." 

Willis  also  contributed  to  the  "  Corsair  "  "  A 
Story  Writ  for  the  Beautiful,"  which  he  de 
scribed  as  a  "  gay,  off-hand  tale,"  and  never  re 
printed.  It  is  a  rather  nonsensical  yarn,  but 
has  one  pretty  passage  in  it  descriptive  of  the 
end  of  a  ball,  —  perhaps  at  Devonshire  House  ? 
—  where  the  servants  raise  the  balcony  awnings 
to  let  in  the  dawn,  and  the  ladies  walk  in  the 
garden,  "  sprinkling  their  gloves  with  picking 
wet  roses." 

On  May  20,  1839,  Willis  sailed  for  England 
on  the  packet  ship  Gladiator.  His  wife  accom 
panied  him,  and,  on  landing,  they  were  met  by 
the  news  that  her  father,  General  Stace,  had 
died  a  week  before  their  arrival.  This  made 


244  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

their  stay  in  England,  which  was  protracted  to 
April,  1840,  a  sad  one  in  many  respects,  and  of 
course  a  quiet  one.  They  passed  most  of  the 
time  with  relatives  of  Mrs.  Willis  at  Old  Charl- 
ton,  Kent,  after  a  short  visit  to  her  sister  Anne, 
who  was  married  to  the  Rev.  William  Vincent, 
son  of  the  vicar  of  Bolney  Priory,  in  Sussex. 
Willis  had  his  hands  full  of  literary  business 
which  required  his  presence  frequently  in  Lon 
don,  Ireland,  and  elsewhere.  Among  other 
things,  he  had  contracted  with  Virtue  to  furnish 
the  letterpress  for  an  illustrated  work  on  Can 
ada,  and  another  on  Ireland,  uniform  with  the 
"  American  Scenery."  He  was  to  write  240 
pages  for  each,  and  to  be  paid  in  all  £950.  By 
some  five  or  six  weeks  of  hard  work  he  finished 
the  Canadian  book  in  August,  and  then  started 
for  a  tour  in  Ireland  preparatory  to  writing  up 
its  scenery.  He  left  Mrs.  Willis  at  Dublin, 
while  he  recrossed  to  Scotland,  and  took  in  the 
famous  tournament  at  Eglintoun  Castle,  which 
filled  the  land  for  months  with  its  noise  of  prep 
aration,  and  ended  in  fizzle  and  rain-water.  Of 
this  he  gave  a  capital  description  in  his  letter  to 
the  "  Corsair,"  "  My  Adventures  at  the  Tourna 
ment."  Mrs.  Willis  remained  with  some  kins 
folk  of  her  mother,  at  Borrmount  Lodge,  near 
Enniscorthy,  County  Wexf ord,  while  her  husband 
spent  a  fortnight  in  doing  the  Lakes  of  Killar- 


THE   CORSAIR.  245 

ney  and  other  show  places  in  the  south  of  the 
island.  He  wrote  to  her  there  from  Tarbert-on- 
the-Shannon,  September  13th  :  — 

"  The  poverty  on  this  side  Ireland  makes  me  sick 
at  the  stomach.  Such  a  God-and-man-abandoned  col 
lection  of  disease  and  misery  I  never  believed  possi 
ble.  Death  and  disease  seem  clutching  their  victims 
away  in  your  very  sight,  and  you  see  them  struggle 
and  go  through  their  last  agony  in  the  streets  —  un- 
pitied.  How  people  can  ride  in  carriages  and  wear 
white  gloves  and  smile  and  look  happy,  in  this  great 
lazar-house,  is  beyond  my  conception.  I  keep  my 
great  cloak  pocket  full  of  pence,  and  shut  my  eyes 
while  I  give  them  into  their  skinny  hands,  —  poor 
devils !  " 

Madden  sings  the  wrath  of  Campbell  over  this 
literary  undertaking  of  Willis  :  "  What  could 
he  know  of  Ireland  ?  How  could  any  American 
know  anything  about  it  ?  Fourteen  days  !  All 
the  knowledge  he  possesses  of  Ireland  might 
have  been  acquired  in  fourteen  hours."  Willis 
might  have  retorted  by  asking  what  a  Scotchman 
could  know  about  the  Valley  of  Wyoming.  Or 
he  might  have  pointed  out  that,  even  as  early  as 
1839,  Americans  had  fuller  sources  of  informa 
tion  about  Ireland  than  they  found  altogether 
comfortable.  After  three  weeks  more  of  tour 
ing  in  that  ragged  commonwealth,  he  returned 
with  his  wife  to  England. 


246  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

Bolney  was  but  twelve  miles  from  Brighton, 
where  the  Wallacks  were  staying,  and  while 
visiting  at  the  former  place  Willis  had  run  across 
country  and  taken  dinner  with  them.  In  No 
vember  he  spent  a  few  days  at  Brighton,  where 
he  lodged  at  the  Ship  Hotel,  found  several  old 
acquaintances,  —  Lady  Stepney  and  Lady  Geor- 
giana  Fane  among  them,  —  and  made  some  new 
ones.  At  a  dinner  at  Lady  Macdonald's  he  met 
Charles  Kemble,  the  actor,  and  Horace  Smith,  of 
the  "  Rejected  Addresses,"  whose  brother  James 
he  had  known  at  Lady  Blessington's  four  years 
ago.  One  of  Willis's  cherished  plans  had  been 
to  spend  the  winter  in  Spain,  a  country  rich  in 
matter  for  future  pencillings,  but  this  scheme 
he  had  to  forego,  Ireland  proving  a  longer  job 
than  he  had  anticipated.  The  last  day  of  1839 
found  him  still  at  Charlton,  working  four  hours 
a  day  on  the  book,  and  in  January  and  Febru 
ary  he  had  to  make  another  trip  to  Ireland, 
visiting  the  Giant's  Causeway  and  other  cele 
brated  bits  of  scenery  in  the  north.  Lady  Geor- 
giana  Fane  had  procured  him  a  letter  from  her 
father,  the  old  Earl  of  Westmoreland,  to  Lord 
Ebrington,  the  lord  lieutenant  of  Ireland,  in 
which  Willis  was  described  as  "  a  gentleman  of 
fortune,  likely  to  attain  to  the  presidency " ! 
He  dined  with  Lord  Ebrington  at  Dublin,  and, 
happening  to  be  there  at  the  time  of  the  ball 


TEE  CORSAIR.  247 

given  in  honor  of  the  queen's  wedding,  he  made 
a  letter  of  it  for  the  "  Corsair,"  afterwards  in 
cluded  in  "  Sketches  of  Travel." 

The  three  books  on  American,  Canadian,  and 
Irish  scenery  were  hack  work,  and  there  is,  of 
course,  little  of  personal  or  purely  literary  inter 
est  in  them.  They  were  written,  however,  with 
more  taste  and  animation  than  the  run  of  sub 
scription  books  of  the  kind.  Willis  was  a  natu 
ral  traveler,  with  a  good  eye  for  landscape  effects, 
and  the  best  chapters  are  those  descriptive  of 
spots  with  which  he  was  already  familiar,  Niag 
ara,  the  Hudson,  Trenton  Falls,  Saratoga,  and 
the  like.  Here  he  occasionally  drew  on  his 
"  Inklings."  For  places  that  he  had  not  visited 
he  trusted  to  the  narratives  of  former  travelers, 
such  as  President  Dwight,  John  Bartram,  and 
Peter  Kalm.  The  description  of  the  White 
Mountains  was  taken  mainly  from  a  friend's 
manuscript  diary;  and  for  statistics  and  local 
legends  he  went  to  the  authorities.  The  Amer 
ican  book  contained,  among  its  two  hundred 
and  forty-two  engravings,  a  view  from  Glen- 
mary  lawn  and  another  of  Undercliff,  Gen 
eral  Morris's  place  on  the  Hudson.  The  last 
gave  Willis  opportunity  for  a  eulogy  on  his 
former  partner,  and  quotations  from  his  songs. 
"Canadian  Scenery"  was  "lifted,"  almost  en 
tire,  from  the  narratives  of  Charlevoix,  Adair, 


248  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

Heriot,  Hodgson,  Murray,  Talbot,  Cockburn, 
and  other  travelers  and  historians  —  of  course 
with  ample  acknowledgments.  It  was  not  so 
purely  descriptive  as  the  American  book,  but 
contained  chapters  on  the  native  Indians,  the 
history  of  the  settlement  of  the  country,  the 
present  condition  of  the  inhabitants,  sporting, 
immigration,  etc.  In  fact,  there  is  very  little 
of  Willis  in  the  book.  In  "  The  Scenery  and 
Antiquities  of  Ireland"  he  had  the  assistance 
of  Mr.  J.  Sterling  Coyne,  who  prepared  the 
whole  of  the  second  volume  and  a  part  of  the 
first,  Willis's  share  consisting  only  of  descrip 
tions  of  the  North  of  Ireland,  a  portion  of  Con- 
nemara,  the  Shannon,  Limerick,  and  Water- 
ford. 

Before  leaving  America  he  had  arranged  with 
Colman  for  the  publication  of  "  The  Tent 
Pitched  "  ("  A  1'Abri "),  "  Tales  of  Five  Lands  " 
("Romance  of  Travel"),  and  "The  Usurer 
Matched."  He  was  to  have  twenty  per  cent, 
on  sales,  and  received  $2,000  on  account  in  ad 
vance.  Meanwhile  the  Longmans  offered  him 
.£200  for  "  Romance  of  Travel,"  if  published  in 
advance  of  the  American  edition.  Willis  wrote 
to  Dr.  Porter,  July  26,  1839,  to  delay  the  Col 
man  publication.  "If  it  is  printed  in  America 
before  I  get  the  sheets  here,  I  lose  exactly 
$1,000.  I  trust  in  Heaven  you  have  not  forgot- 


THE  CORSAIR.  249 

ten  my  earnest  injunctions  on  this  subject.  A 
London  publisher  will  buy  it  if  a  published 
copy  has  not  come  over,  else  he  may  have  it  for 
nothing."  The  book  was  accordingly  published 
first  in  London,  in  January,  1840,  in  three  vol 
umes,  with  the  title  "  Loiterings  of  Travel,"  and, 
later  in  the  same  year,  in  America,  as  "  Romance 
of  Travel,"  in  a  single  volume,  very  shabbily 
printed.  Virtue  also  paid  him  <£50  for  an  Eng 
lish  edition  of  "  A  1'Abri,"  with  illustrations  by 
Bartlett.  A  fourth  London  edition  of  "  Pencil- 
lings,"  with  four  illustrations,  was  coming  out, 
and,  finally,  Cunningham,  Macrone's  successor, 
printed  an  English  edition  of  "  Bianca  Yisconti " 
and  "  Tortesa  "  as  "  Two  Ways  of  Dying  for  a 
Husband."  This  was  published  on  half  profits, 
and  Willis  expected  to  make  about  <£50  from  it. 
Serjeant  Talfourd,  the  author  of  "  Ion,"  wrote 
him  a  complimentary  letter  on  its  appearance. 
"My  literary  receipts  in  England  this  year," 
wrote  Willis  to  Dr.  Porter,  on  the  last  day  of 
1839,  "will  amount  to  $7,500,  all  gone  for  ex 
penses,  back  debts,  etc." 

"  Romance  of  Travel "  was  a  collection  of 
seven  stories  contributed  to  the  "  Mirror,"  the 
"  New  Monthly,"  and  the  "  Corsair."  They  were 
crowded  with  duels,  intrigues,  disguises,  esca 
pades,  assassinations,  masked  balls,  lost  heirs, 
and  all  the  stock  properties  of  the  romancer's 


250  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

art.  The  view  of  life  which  they  presented 
was  unreal  to  the  verge  of  the  fantastic,  but 
they  abounded  in  descriptions  of  great  elegance 
and  even  beauty,  and  the  narrative  went  trip 
pingly  along.  Willis  had  many  of  the  gifts  of 
the  born  raconteur.  He  lacked  a  large  con- 
structiveness,  but  in  the  minor  graces  of  the 
story-teller  he  was  always  happy.  He  was  skill 
ful  in  managing  the  callida  junctura,  good  at 
a  start,  a  transition,  or  a  finish.  One  must  not 
look  in  these  artificial  fictions  for  truthful  de 
lineation  of  character,  or  expect  to  have  his 
emotions  deeply  stirred.  The  tragic  incidents, 
especially,  fail  in  the  time-honored  Aristotelian 
requirement.  They  are  exciting  enough,  in  a 
way,  but  move  neither  pity  nor  terror.  The  high 
spirits  of  the  narrator  carry  his  readers  buoy 
antly  along  over  the  bloodiest  passages  with 
scarcely  an  abatement  of  their  cheerfulness. 
Willis  did  not  take  room  enough  to  develop 
character  and  motive  to  the  extent  required  in 
order  to  give  his  thick-coming  events  an  air  of 
vraisemblance.  "This  tale  of  many  tails,"  he 
said  of  "  Violanta  Cesarini,"  "  should  have  been 
a  novel.  You  have  in  brief  what  should  have 
been  well  elaborated,  embarrassed  with  difficul 
ties,  relieved  by  digressions,  tipped  with  a  moral, 
and  bound  in  two  volumes,  with  a  portrait  of 
the  author."  From  this  defect  and  from  the 


THE   CORSAIR.  251 

author's  light  way  of  telling  his  stories,  it  fol 
lowed  that  the  more  serious  of  these  carried  no 
conviction  of  reality  to  the  reader's  mind.  "  Vio- 
lanta  Cesar ini  "  is  the  history  of  a  humpbacked 
artist,  who  turns  out  to  be  the  heir  to  the  estates 
of  a  Roman  noble,  thereby  supplanting  his  sister, 
but  enabling  her  to  marry  his  chum,  a  poor  ar 
tist,  with  whom  she  was  secretly  in  love.  The 
outlines  of  the  plot  were  from  a  true  story  told 
him  by  Lady  Blessington,  but  he  added  the  love 
passages  and,  of  course,  all  the  particulars  in 
the  development  of  the  tale.  "  Paletto's  Bride  " 
was  the  legend  of  a  Venetian  gondolier,  who 
made  —  and  as  suddenly  lost  —  a  fortune  in  a 
single  night's  play,  figured  as  a  mysterious  un 
known  in  the  high  society  of  Florence,  and  car 
ried  off  a  titled  beauty  to  share  his  home  among 
the  lagoons.  "The  Bandit  of  Austria"  was  a 
modification  of  a  story  related  to  Willis  by 
D'Orsay.  The  heroine  was  a  Hungarian  count 
ess,  who  had  run  off  with  a  famous  outlaw.  The 
latter  having  been  killed  by  the  Austrian  police, 
the  lady,  without  wasting  much  time  in  unavail 
ing  regrets,  falls  in  love  with  the  narrator's 
handsome  English  page  (a  glorified  William 
Michell?),  and  is  wedded  to  him  after  a  series 
of  extraordinary  adventures.  Willis  worked  in 
here  a  striking  description  of  the  grotto  of 
Adelsberg,  in  which  the  most  effective  scene  of 


252  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

the  story  takes  place.  "  Lady  Eavelgold  "  is  a 
tale  of  English  high  life.  The  hero  is  a  young 
London  banker,  who  proves  in  the  end  to  be  a 
count  of  the  Russian  Empire,  and  the  inheritor 
of  vast  possessions  in  that  conveniently  indefi 
nite  country.  Three  high-born  beauties  are  des 
perately  enamored  of  him,  among  them  a  mother 
and  daughter,  the  latter  of  whom  ultimately  gets 
him.  As  in  "Ernest  Clay,"  and,  in  fact,  in 
nearly  all  Willis's  stories  of  high  life,  it  is  the 
women  who  make  love  to  the  men.  The  scene 
of  the  garden  party  at  "  Rose  Eden  "  was  sug 
gested  by  &f£te~champetre  at  Gore  House,  and 
the  delicious  picture  of  Lady  Ravelgold's  boudoir 
was  doubtless  borrowed  from  the  same  mansion. 
The  high-piled  luxuriance  of  the  upholstery  in 
these  "  Romances  of  Travel,"  their  nonchalant 
young  heroes,  their  jeweled  and  embroidered 
heroines,  with  Aladdin-like  resources  in  the  way 
of  palaces,  gardens,  retainers,  and  stalactite  cav 
erns,  point  to  "Vivian  Grey"  and  the  other 
expensive  fictions  of  the  youthful  Disraeli  as 
Willis's  nearest  models.  Upon  the  whole,  the 
best  story  in  the  book  is  "  Pasquali,  the  Tailor 
of  Venice,"  which  was  more  within  the  natural 
compass  of  Willis's  talent.  It  has  a  malicious 
irony  that  reminds  one  of  "  Beppo  "  and  the  "  De 
cameron,"  and  it  is  not  without  an  undercurrent 
of  pathos. 


THE   CORSAIR.  253 

In  spite  of  his  other  literary  preoccupations 
he  found  time  to  write  a  series  of  weekly  or 
fortnightly  letters  to  the  "Corsair,"  —  "Jottings 
down  in  London,"  —  a  portion  of  which  stand  in 
his  collected  writings  as  "  Passages  from  an 
Epistolary  Journal."  They  are  naturally  not  as 
fresh  as  the  earlier  "  Pencillings,"  though  very 
good  foreign  correspondence  of  an  ephemeral 
sort.  In  search  of  matter  for  these  letters, 
Willis  went  about  a  good  deal  in  London.  He 
visited  the  theatres  and  the  House  of  Commons, 
looked  up  his  old  acquaintances  of  1835,  was 
present  at  a  reception  to  the  Persian  ambassa 
dors  at  Lady  Morgan's,  —  where  he  saw  Mrs. 
Norton  again,  —  dined  with  the  Nawaub  of  Oude, 
went  to  a  public  dinner  given  to  Macready  at 
the  Freemasons'  Tavern,  —  where  he  sat  next 
Samuel  Lover,  —  to  a  ball  at  Almack's,  and 
a  tournament  in  St.  John's  Wood.  Disraeli 
walked  home  with  him  from  a  ball  and  said 
he  was  going  to  Niagara  on  his  wedding  trip. 
Willis  noted  some  changes  in  England  since 
his  first  visit.  Among  other  things  William  IV. 
was  dead  and  Victoria  on  the  throne,  and  the 
London  shops  had  increased  greatly  in  splendor. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  results  of  this 
second  stay  in  England  w?,s  his  meeting  with 
Thackeray  —  then  a  young  and  comparatively 
unknown  writer  —  and  his  engaging  him  as  a 


254  NATHANIEL  PARKER    WILLIS. 

contributor  to  the  "  Corsair,"  a  stroke  of  jour 
nalistic  enterprise  which  ought  to  have  pro 
longed  the  life  of  that  piratical  journal,  but 
did  not.  In  a  private  letter  to  Dr.  Porter, 
dated  July  26th,  Willis  wrote  :  — 

"  I  have  engaged  a  contributor  to  the  '  Corsair.' 
Who  do  you  think  ?  The  author  of  '  Yellowplush ' 
and  '  Major  Gahagan.'  I  have  mentioned  it  in  my 
jottings,  that  our  readers  may  know  all  about  it.  He 
has  gone  to  Paris,  and  will  write  letters  from  there, 
and  afterwards  from  London,  for  a  guinea  a  close 
column  of  the  '  Corsair  '  —  cheaper  than  I  ever 
did  anything  in  my  life.  I  will  see  that  he  is  paid 
for  a  while  to  see  how  you  like  him.  For  myself,  I 
think  him  the  very  best  periodical  writer  alive.  He 
is  a  royal,  daring,  fine  creature,  too.  I  take  the  re 
sponsibility  of  it.  You  will  hear  from  him  soon." 

The  mention  in  the  jottings  here  referred  to 
appeared  in  the  "  Corsair  "  of  August  24th. 

"  One  of  my  first  inquiries  in  London  was  touch 
ing  the  authorship  of  '  The  Yellowplush  Papers  ' 
and  the  '  Reminiscences  of  Major  Gahagan,'  —  the 
only  things  in  periodical  literature,  except  the  '  Pick 
wick  Papers,'  for  which  I  looked  with  any  in 
terest  or  eagerness.  The  author,  Mr.  Thackeray, 
breakfasted  with  me  yesterday,  and  the  '  Corsair ' 
will  be  delighted,  I  am  sure,  to  hear  that  I  have  en 
gaged  this  cleverest  and  most  gifted  of  the  magazine- 
writers  of  London  to  become  a  regular  correspond- 


THE   CORSAIR.  255 

ent  of  the  '  Corsair.'  He  left  London  for  Paris  the 
day  after,  and  having  resided  in  that  city  for  many 
years,  his  letters  thence  will  be  pictures  of  life  in 
France,  done  with  a  bolder  and  more  trenchant  pen 
than  has  yet  attempted  the  subject.  He  will  present 
a  long  letter  every  week,  and  you  will  agree  with  me 
that  he  is  no  common  acquisition.  Thackeray  is  a  tall, 
athletic  man  of  about  thirty-five,  with  a  look  of  talent 
that  could  never  be  mistaken.  He  has  taken  to  lit 
erature  after  having  spent  a  very  large  inheritance  ; 
but  in  throwing  away  the  gifts  of  fortune,  he  has 
cultivated  his  natural  talents  very  highly,  and  is  one 
of  the  most  accomplished  draftsmen  in  England,  as 
well  as  the  cleverest  and  most  brilliant  of  periodical 
writers.  He  has  been  the  principal  critic  for  the 
*  Times,'  and  writes  for  '  Fraser '  and  '  Blackwood.' 
You  will  hear  from  him  by  the  first  steamer  after 
his  arrival  in  Paris,  and  thenceforward  regularly." 

The  same  number  contained  Thackeray's  first 
letter,  dated  at  Paris,  H6tel  Mirabeau,  July  25, 
1839,  and  concluding  with  a  characteristic  little 
address  to  the  editor,  in  which  he  speaks  of  his 
feelings  "  in  finding  good  friends  and  listeners 
among  strangers  far,  far  away  —  in  receiving 
from  beyond  seas  kind  crumbs  of  comfort  for 
our  hungry  vanities."  These  letters  were  signed 
T.  T.  (Timothy  Titcomb),  and  eight  of  them  in 
all  were  published  in  the  "  Corsair."  A  few 
appear  in  Thackeray's  collected  works  in  a  vol 
ume  entitled  "  The  Paris  Sketch  Book,"  and  all 


256  NATHANIEL  PARKER    WILLIS. 

of  them,  with  a  few  changes,  in  "  The  Student's 
Quarter ;  or  Paris  Five  and  Thirty  Years  since," 
published  by  Hotten  after  Thackeray's  death. 
Thackeray  humorously  alludes  to  this  episode 
in  his  early  literary  struggles  in  his  novel  of 
"  Philip,"  the  hero  of  which  contributes  a  week 
ly  letter,  signed  "  Philalethes,"  to  a  fashionable 
New  York  journal  entitled  "  The  Gazette  of  the 
Upper  Ten  Thousand."  "  Political  treatises," 
writes  the  excellent  Dr.  Firmin  to  his  son,  "  are 
not  so  much  wanted  as  personal  news,  regarding 
the  notabilities  of  London."  This  description 
of  the  "  Mirror  "  pointed,  of  course,  at  Willis's 
authorship  of  the  phrase,  "  The  Upper  Ten 
Thousand." 

It  may  be  not  uninteresting  to  compare 
Thackeray's  opinion  of  Willis  with  Willis's 
impressions  of  Thackeray.  The  author  of  the 
"  Book  of  Snobs  "  paid  his  respects  twice,  at 
least,  in  print  to  the  author  of  "  Pencillings  by 
the  Way : "  once  in  a  review  of  "  Dashes  at 
Life  "  in  the  "  Edinburgh  "  for  October,  1845, 
and  again  in  an  article  "  On  an  American 
Traveler,"  being  the  sixth  number  of  "  The 
Proser,"  contributed  to  the  nineteenth  volume 
of  "  Punch  "  (1850),  and  occasioned  by  Willis's 
"  People  I  have  Met."  In  both  of  these  papers 
he  quizzes  Willis,  though  not  unkindly.  He 
laughs  especially  at  his  fashion  in  "  Ernest 


THE  CORSAIR.  257 

Clay,"  of  representing  the  aristocratic  English 
dames  as  all  throwing  themselves  at  the  head  of 
the  conquering  young  genius  who  writes  for  the 
magazines. 

"  The  great  characteristic  of  high  society  in  Eng 
land,  Mr.  Willis  assures  us,  is  admiration  of  literary 
talent.  As  some  captain  of  free  lancers  of  former 
days  elbowed  his  way  through  royal  palaces  with  the 
eyes  of  all  womankind  after  him,  so  in  the  present 
time,  a  man  by  being  a  famous  Free  Pencil  may 
achieve  a  similar  distinction.  This  truly  surprising 
truth  forms  the  text  of  almost  every  one  of  Mr.  Wil 
lis's  (  Dashes  '  at  English  and  Continental  life." 

"  That  famous  and  clever  N.  P.  Willis  of  former 
days,  whose  reminiscences  have  delighted  so  many  of 
us,  and  in  whose  company  one  is  always  sure  to  find 
amusement  of  one  sort  or  the  other.  Sometimes  it 
is  amusement  at  the  writer's  wit  and  smartness,  his 
brilliant  descriptions  and  wondrous  flow  and  rattle  of 
spirits,  and  sometimes  it  is  wicked  amusement,  and, 
it  must  be  confessed,  at  Willis's  own  expense.  .  .  . 
To  know  a  duchess,  for  instance,  is  given  to  very 
few  of  us.  He  sees  things  that  are  not  given  to  us 
to  see.  We  see  the  duchess  pass  by  in  her  carriage 
and  gaze  with  much  reverence  on  the  strawberry 
leaves  on  the  panels  and  her  Grace  within  ;  whereas 
the  odds  are  that  the  lovely  duchess  has  had,  at  one 
time  or  the  other,  a  desperate  flirtation  with  Willis 
the  conqueror.  .  .  .  He  must  have  whole  mattresses 
stuffed  with  the  blonde  or  raven  or  auburn  memories 
17 


258  NATHANIEL   PARKER    WILLIS. 

of  England's  fairest  daughters.  When  the  female 
English  aristocracy  reads  this  title  of  *  People  I 
have  Met,'  I  can  fancy  the  whole  female  peerage  of 
Willis's  time  in  a  shudder  :  and  the  melancholy  mar 
chioness,  and  the  abandoned  countess,  and  the  heart- 
stricken  baroness  trembling,  as  each  gets  the  volume, 
and  asking  of  her  guilty  conscience,  '  Gracious  good 
ness  !  Is  the  monster  going  to  show  up  me  ? '  " 

Especially  does  he  chaff  Willis  about  his  story 
of  "  Brown's  Day  with  the  Mimpsons,"  the 
hero  of  which  adventure,  an  American  who  is 
hand  in  glove  with  noble  dukes,  etc.,  is  asked 
home  to  dinner  by  Mimpson,  a  plain,  blunt 
British  merchant,  whose  wife  snubs  Mr.  Brown, 
mistaking  him  for  a  plebeian  person.  The  lat 
ter  avenges  himself  by  a  somewhat  cavalier  de 
portment,  and  by  obtaining,  through  his  dear 
friend  Lady  X.,  a  ticket  to  Almack's  for  Mrs, 
M.'s  companion,  the  pretty  Miss  Bellamy ;  while 
the  matron  herself  and  her  haughty  daughter, 
who  are  dying  for  a  ticket,  are  left  out  in  the 
cold.  Thackeray  remonstrates  as  follows  with 
Mr.  Brown,  under  whose  modest  mask  he  fancies 
that  he  sees  the  "  features  of  an  N.  P.  W.  him 
self:"— 

"  There  's  a  rascal  for  you  !  He  enters  a  house,  is 
received  coolly  by  the  mistress,  walks  into  chicken- 
fixings  in  a  side  room,  and,  not  content  with  Mimp 
son 's  sherry,  calls  for  a  bottle  of  champagne  —  not 


THE  CORSAIR.  259 

for  a  glass  of  champagne,  but  for  a  bottle.  He  catches 
hold  of  it  and  pours  out  for  himself,  the  rogue,  and 
for  Miss  Bellamy,  to  whom  Thomas  (the  butler)  in 
troduces  him.  Come,  Brown,  you  are  a  stranger  and 
on  the  dinner  list  of  most  of  the  patricians  of  May 
Fair,  but  is  n't  this  un  pen  fort,  my  boy  ?  If  Mrs. 
Mimpson,  who  is  described  as  a  haughty  lady,  fourth 
cousin  of  a  Scotch  earl,  and  marrying  M.  for  his 
money  merely,  had  suspicions  regarding  the  conduct 
of  her  husband's  friends,  don't  you  see  that  this  sort 
of  behavior  on  your  part,  my  dear  Brown,  was  not 
likely  to  do  away  with  Mrs.  M.'s  little  prejudices  ?  " 

In  April,  1840,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Willis  sailed 
for  America,  taking  with  them  Miss  Bessie 
Stace,  a  younger  sister  of  Mrs.  Willis,  who  was 
to  make  them  a  visit  at  Owego.  The  "  Corsair  " 
had  not  been  a  success  financially,  and  Dr.  Por 
ter  had  become  discouraged  and  discontinued 
publication  in  March,  transferring  his  subscrip 
tion  list  to  the  "  Albion."  Since  the  establish 
ment  of  the  paper,  a  year  before,  Willis  had 
ceased  his  contributions  to  the  New  York  "  Mir 
ror,"  and  he  did  not  resume  them  until  the  end  of 
1842.  But  meanwhile  he  was  not  left  without  a 
market  for  his  literary  wares.  Just  before  leav 
ing  England  he  had  received  a  letter  from  Mr. 
J.  Gregg  Wilson,  the  publisher  of  "Brother 
Jonathan,"  a  new  weekly  printed  in  New  York, 
with  a  circulation  of  some  twenty  thousand,  in- 


260  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

forming  him  of  the  "Corsair's"  suspension,  ex 
pressing  a  warm  admiration  for  his  talents,  and 
inviting  him  to  write  the  "  Brother  Jonathan  "  a 
weekly  letter,  a  column  in  length,  for  which  he 
promised  to  pay  him  at  the  highest  current  rates. 
To  this  paper  Willis  contributed  about  a  year 
and  a  half,  or  up  to  September,  1841.  His  hu 
morous  poem,  "  Lady  Jane,"  was  published  in 
installments  in  the  "  Dollar,"  the  monthly  edi 
tion  of  "Brother  Jonathan."  With  both  of 
these  periodicals  he  had  a  quasi  editorial  con 
nection,  though  the  real  editor  was  Mr.  H.  Has 
tings  Weld.  He  received  similar  invitations  from 
the  two  monthlies,  "  Graham's  Magazine  "  and 
"  Godey's  Lady's  Book,"  which  were  paying 
their  contributors  —  among  whom  were  nearly 
all  the  principal  writers  in  the  country  —  prices 
hitherto  unknown  to  American  periodicals.  Wil 
lis  was  paid  at  the  rate  of  $50  for  an  article  of 
four  printed  pages  of  the  "Lady's  Book,"  — 
less,  no  doubt,  than  a  writer  of  equal  reputa 
tion  could  command  now,  but  regarded  as  wildly 
munificent  in  1841.  Twelve  dollars  a  page  were 
the  regular  rates  of  both  these  magazines.  "  The 
burst  on  author-land  of  Graham's  and  Godey's 
liberal  prices,"  said  Willis,  "  was  like  a  sunrise 
without  a  dawn."  Mr.  Charles  T.  Congdon,  in 
his  interesting  "  Reminiscences  of  a  Journalist," 
says  that  "Mr.  Willis  was  the  first  magazine 


THE   CORSAIR.  261 

writer  who  was  tolerably  well  paid.  At  one  time, 
about  1842,  he  was  writing  four  articles  monthly 
for  four  magazines,  and  receiving  $100  each." 
This  means  an  income  of  $4,800  a  year,  but  the 
strain  required  to  keep  up  such  a  rate  of  produc 
tion  must  tax  the  powers  of  the  readiest  writer, 
and  it  was  no  wonder  if  the  product  was  of  very 
uneven  excellence.  The  four  magazines  here  re 
ferred  to  were  undoubtedly  the  "  Mirror,"  "  Gra 
ham's,"  "Godey's,"  and  "The  Ladies'  Com 
panion,"  of  which  Mrs.  Sigourney  was  for  a 
time  the  editor,  and  to  which  Willis  contributed 
in  1842  and  1843  a  half  dozen  stories  and  a  few 
"  Passages  from  Correspondence  "  and  "  Leaves 
from  a  Table  Book."  Two  of  these  stories 
are  not  found  among  his  collected  writings: 
"  Poyntz's  Aunt,"  a  Saratoga  tale,  which  has 
been  mentioned  before,  and  "Fitz  Powys  and 
the  Nun,  or  Diplomacy  in  High  Life,"  a  very 
impossible  fiction,  and  not  worth  describing. 
Such  of  the  "  Leaves  "  and  "  Scraps "  as  de 
served  preserving  found  their  way  into  "  Ephem 
era."  His  contributions  to  "  Godey's  "  began 
with  the  January  number  for  1842,  and  con 
tinued,  though  with  greatly  diminished  fre 
quency,  till  January,  1850.  During  the  first 
year  he  had  an  article  in  nearly  every  number, 
most  of  them  stories.  For  "  Graham's  "  he  be 
gan  to  write  in  January,  1843,  and  contributed 


262  NATHANIEL  PARKER    WILLIS. 

occasionally  as  late  as  1851.  "  The  Marquis  in 
Petticoats"  and  "Broadway;  A  Sketch "  were 
published  in  1843  in  Epes  Sargent's  short-lived 
magazine ;  "  The  Power  of  an  Injured  Look  "  in 
the  "  Gift "  for  1845,  an  annual  issued  in  Phila 
delphia.  He  edited  another  annual,  the  "  Opal " 
for  1844,  and  wrote  articles  of  various  kinds  for 
other  periodicals.  During  the  two  years  and  a 
half  from  January,  1842,  to  June,  1844,  he  pub 
lished,  all  in  all,  some  forty  stories,  collected, 
with  two  or  three  exceptions,  in  "  Dashes  at  Life 
with  a  Free  Pencil."  Willis  was  at  this  time, 
beyond  a  doubt,  the  most  popular,  best  paid,  and 
in  every  way  most  successful  magazinist  that 
America  had  yet  seen.  He  commanded  the  sym 
pathy  of  his  readers  more  than  any  other  period 
ical  writer  of  his  day,  and  his  reputation  almost 
amounted  to  fame.  Colonel  Higginson  tells  a 
story,  illustrating  his  vogue,  about  a  solid  com 
mercial  gentleman  in  Boston,  who,  finding  him 
self  by  chance  at  some  literary  dinner  or  tea,  is 
reported  to  have  entered  into  the  spirit  of  the 
occasion  by  saying  that  "he  guessed  Go-ethe 
was  the  JSP.  P.  Willis  of  Germany." 

Willis  lived  at  Owego  till  1842,  and  contin 
ued  to  date  his  letters  to  "  Brother  Jonathan," 
"  Graham's,"  etc.,  "  from  under  a  bridge."  He 
had  expected  something  like  XI, 000  from  Gen 
eral  Stace's  estate,  but  it  yielded  him  nothing. 


THE   CORSAIR.  263 

His  publisher  failed  about  this  time,  and  his 
arrangement  with  "  Brother  Jonathan  "  coming 
to  an  end,  he  engaged  with  a  Washington  pa 
per,  the  "  National  Intelligencer,"  to  send  it 
fortnightly  correspondence  from  New  York.  All 
these  causes  combined  made  it  necessary  for  him 
to  take  up  his  residence  in  the  city  and  to  offer 
Glenmary  for  sale ;  which  he  did  with  a  heavy 
heart,  taking  the  public  into  his  confidence,  as 
usual,  in  his  affecting  "  Letter  to  the  Unknown 
Purchaser  and  Next  Occupant  of  Glenmary," 
first  printed  in  "  Godey's  "  for  December,  1842, 
and  included  in  all  subsequent  editions  of  "  Let 
ters  from  under  a  Bridge." 

"  I  thought  to  have  shuffled  off  my  mortal  coil 
tranquilly  here ;  flitting  at  last  in  some  company  of 
my  autumn  leaves,  or  some  bevy  of  spring  blossoms, 
or  with  snow  in  the  thaw.  ...  In  the  shady  depths 
of  the  small  glen  above  you,  among  the  wild  flowers 
and  music,  the  music  of  the  brook  babbling  over 
rocky  steps,  is  a  spot  sacred  to  love  and  memory. 
Keep  it  inviolate,  and  as  much  of  the  happiness  of 
Glenmary  as  we  can  leave  behind  stay  with  you  for 
recompense  ! " 

This  sacred  nook  —  reserved  from  purchase  — 
was  the  spot  where  his  own  hands  had  broken  the 
snow  and  frozen  earth  to  bury  the  little  body  of 
his  first  child,  a  daughter,  born  dead  December 
4,  1840.  The  father's  grief  and  disappointment 


264  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

found  a  voice  in  one  of  the  most  naturally  and 
simply  written  of  his  poems,  "  Thoughts  while 
making  the  Grave  of  a  New -Born  Child." 
On  June  20,  1842,  a  second  daughter,  Imogen, 
was  born,  his  only  surviving  child  by  his  first 
wife.  Later  in  the  same  summer  he  broke  up  his 
home  at  Glenmary  and  removed  to  New  York. 
For  a  while  he  "  pitched  his  uprooted  tent "  in 
Brooklyn  lodgings  ;  then  he  went  to  housekeep 
ing  for  a  time,  and  afterwards  took  rooms  at  the 
Astor.  When  in  London  in  1836,  Willis  had 
accompanied  his  publisher,  Macrone,  on  a  visit 
to  Dickens,  then  "  a  young  paragraphist  for  the 
4  Morning  Chronicle,'  "  living  in  lodgings  at  Fur- 
nivall's  Inn.  This  visit  he  afterwards  described 
in  his  "  Ephemera,"  and  Forster  says  that  he  and 
Dickens  "laughed  heartily  at  the  description, 
hardly  a  word  of  which  is  true."  Be  this  as  it 
may,  when  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Dickens  'came  to  Amer 
ica  in  1842,  Willis  ran  down  to  New  York  to 
be  present  at  the  "  Boz  "  ball.  He  wrote  to  his 
wife  at  Glenmary  that  he  had  spent  an  after 
noon  in  showing  Mrs.  Dickens  the  splendors  of 
Broadway,  and  had  danced  with  her  at  the  ball, 
where,  encountering  Halleck,  the  two  poets 
"  slipped  down  about  midnight  to  the  '  Cornu 
copia  '  and  had  rum  toddy  and  broiled  oysters." 
Among  Willis's  private  papers  is  a  cordial  letter 
from  Dickens,  dated  at  Niagara,  April  30,  1842, 


THE  NEW  MIRROR.  265 

regretting  that  he  should  not  have  time  to  accept 
his  invitation  to  make  him  a  visit  at  Owego. 

A  rapprochement  now  took  place  between 
Willis  and  his  former  associate  General  Morris. 
The  "New  York  Mirror"  of  December  31, 1842, 
announced  that,  expenditures  having  largely  ex 
ceeded  receipts,  the  paper  would  henceforth  be 
discontinued,  but  that  a  new  series  would  begin 
in  a  few  weeks.  The  issue  of  the  17th  of  the 
same  month  had  contained  two  short  sketches, 
"  Imogen  and  Cymbeline  "  and  "  A  Charming 
Widow  of  Sixty,"  which  were  afterwards  joined 
into  one  and  worked  up  into  "  Poyntz's  Aunt." 
These  were  of  no  importance  except  as  being  his 
first  direct  contributions  to  the  "  Mirror  "  since 
the  establishment  of  the  "  Corsair,"  over  two 
years  and  a  half  before.  On  Saturday,  April  8, 
1843,  the  first  number  of  the  "  New  Mirror  " 
was  issued  under  the  joint  editorship  of  Morris 
and  Willis.  The  latter  had  now  entered  upon 
an  active  career  of  journalism  which  lasted,  with 
a  single  brief  interruption,  for  nearly  a  quarter 
of  a  century,  till  his  death  in  1867.  With  the 
"  New  Mirror  "  he  resumed  the  duties  of  an  ed 
itor,  which  he  had  laid  down  when  he  sold  out  the 
"  American  Monthly "  in  1831.  He  had  been, 
it  is  true,  a  nominal  editor  of  the  old  "  New  York 
Mirror  "  and  of  the  fc<  Corsair,"  but  virtually  he 
was  merely  a  contributor  and  foreign  correspond- 


266  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

ent  of  both  these  papers,  and  had  felt  no  real 
responsibility  for  their  conduct.  In  the  three 
periodicals  which  Morris  and  Willis  now  edited 
successively,  the  "  New  Mirror,"  the  "  Evening 
Mirror,"  and  the  "  Home  Journal,"  the  business 
management  remained  in  the  hands  of  the  for 
mer,  but  the  literary  policy  was  largely  shaped 
by  Willis,  and  almost  the  entire  time  and  ener 
gies  of  both  partners  were  given  to  their  enter 
prises.  The  office  of  the  new  journal  was  at  No. 
4  Ann  Street,  and  its  title  in  full  ran  as  fol 
lows  :  — 

"  The  New  Mirror  of  Literature,  Amusement,  and 
Instruction :  Containing  Original  Papers,  Tales  of 
Romance,  Sketches  of  Society,  Manners,  and  Every 
day  Life  ;  Domestic  and  Foreign  Correspondence ; 
Wit  and  Humor ;  Fashion  and  Gossip  ;  the  Fine  Arts 
and  Literary,  Musical,  and  Dramatic  Criticism ;  ex 
tracts  from  New  Works  ;  Poetry,  Original  and  Se 
lected  ;  the  Spirit  of  the  Public  Journals,  etc.,  etc., 
etc." 

Willis  could  not  afford  to  give  up  all  the  other 
strings  to  his  bow  until  he  saw  how  the  new  ven 
ture  was  going  to  succeed.  He  retained  his 
position  as  New  York  correspondent  to  the  "  Na 
tional  Intelligencer,"  and  his  "  Daguerreotype 
Sketches  of  New  York,"  published  in  that  paper, 
were  regularly  reprinted  in  the  "  New  Mirror." 
His  stories  in  "  Graham's  "  and  "  Godey's  "  went 


THE  NEW  MIRROR.  267 

on  up  to  January,  1844,  after  which  time  he  an 
nounced  that  he  should  write  in  future  exclu 
sively  for  his  own  paper.  His  contributions  to 
the  "  Mirror,"  while  editor,  included  tales,  poems, 
sketches,  reminiscences,  letters,  book  notices, 
besides  editorial  papers  of  a  miscellaneous  sort, 
such  as  "  Jottings,"  "  Slipshoddities,"  "  Diary  of 
Town  Trifles,"  "  More  Particularly,"  "  Just  You 
and  I,"  "  While  We  hold  You  by  the  Button," 
and  what  not,  in  which  he  set  himself  to  catch 
and  reflect  the  passing  humors  and  picturesque 
surfaces  of  town  life.  He  might  have  said  of 
his  muse  at  this  time,  as  the  psalmist  of  his  soul, 
Adhcesit  pammento.  He  wrote  a  number  of 
"City  Lyrics,"  signed  "Down  Town  Bard," 
celebrating  beauties  in  white  chip  hats,  whom  he 
had  helped  into  omnibuses :  Broadway  odes,  in 
viting  his  sweetheart  to  a  moonlight  walk  up  to 
Thompson's  for  an  ice ;  or  mock  heroic  lamen 
tations  in  blank  verse,  that  the  lady  in  the 
chemisette  with  black  buttons,  whose  sixpence 
he  had  passed  up  to  the  driver,  might  be  doomed 
to  pass  him  forever  without  meeting,  — 

"  Thou  in  a  Knickerbocker  Line,  and  I 
Lone  in  the  Waverley." 

It  might  have  been  expected  that  Willis,  with 
his  peculiarly  dainty  instinct,  would  excel  in  this 
carving  of  cherry  stones.  But  his  society  verses 
in  this  kind  were  too  hurriedly  done  and  fell 


268  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

short  of  that  perfect  workmanship  and  fineness 
of  taste  which  float  many  a  trifle  of  Praed  or 
Dobson.  Willis's  city  poems  are  flimsy  and 
sometimes  a  little  vulgar,  and  their  place  is  mid 
way  between  really  artistic  society  verse  and 
such  metropolitan  ballads  as  "  Walking  Down 
Broadway  "  and  "  Tassels  on  the  Boots,"  which 
Lingard  used  to  sing.  The  best  of  them,  per 
haps,  is  "  Love  in  a  Cottage,"  a  charmingly 
frank  expression  of  a  preference  for  the  arti 
ficial,  a  quatrain  from  which  has  got  into  com 
mon  quotation :  — 

"But  give  me  a  sly  flirtation 

By  the  light  of  a  chandelier, 
With  music  to  play  in  the  pauses, 
And  nobody  very  near." 

These  "  City  Lyrics  "  were  not  all  humorous, 
however.  The  bitter  contrasts  which  forced 
themselves  upon  Bryant  walking  "  slowly  through 
the  crowded  street "  appealed  also  to  the  "  Down 
Town  Bard,"  who  expressed  them  in  "  The  Pity 
of  the  Park  Fountain,"  and  more  successfully 
in  "Unseen  Spirits,"  first  printed  in  the  "New 
Mirror"  of  July  29,  1843.  This  little  poem  — 
suggested,  perhaps,  in  some  mood  of  abstrac 
tion  when  the  poet  was  strolling  listlessly  up 
Broadway,  his  spirits  low  and  his  eternal  watch 
fulness  for  effects  asleep  —  has,  for  that  very 
reason  doubtless,  the  sudden  touch  of  genius,  the 


THE  NEW  MIRROR.  269 

unconsciousness  and  careless  felicity  which  seem 
likely  to  keep  it  alive  and  to  make  it,  possibly, 
the  only  work  of  Willis  destined  to  reach  pos 
terity.  It  was  a  favorite  with  Edgar  Poe,  who 
used  to  recite  it  at  reading  clubs  and  the  like, 
and  who  said  that,  in  his  opinion  and  that  of 
nearly  all  his  friends,  it  was  "  the  truest  poem 
ever  written  by  Mr.  Willis.  There  is  about  this 
little  poem,"  he  continues,  "  (evidently  written 
in  haste  and  through  impulse)  a  true  imagina 
tion.  Its  grace,  dignity,  and  pathos  are  impres 
sive,  and  there  is  more  in  it  of  earnestness  of 
soul  than  in  anything  I  have  seen  from  the  pen 
of  its  author."  l 

Willis  took  advantage  of  his  new  facilities  to 
become  his  own  publisher,  issuing  successively, 
as  shilling  extras  in  the  "  Mirror  Library,"  his 
"  Sacred  Poems,"  "  Poems  of  Passion,"  and 
"  Lady  Jane  and  Humorous  Poems  ;  "  following 
these  up  with  the  first  complete  editions,  from 
the  "  Mirror  "  press,  of  "  Letters  from  Under 
a  Bridge,"  and  "  Pencillings  by  the  Way."  The 

1  In  a  late  anthology,  this  poem  of  Willis  is  included  under 
the  melodramatic  title  Two  Women.  An  author's  choice  of 
a  title  is  almost  as  much  to  be  respected  as  his  text.  In 
this  instance,  Willis's  own  selection  was  not  only  much  the 
better,  but  it  is  interesting  as  probably  suggested  to  him  by 
lines  that  were  favorites  of  his  in  Longfellow's  translation 
from  Uhland  :  — 

"  For,  invisibly  to  thee, 
Spirits  twain  have  crossed  with  me." 


270  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

poems  contained  few  notable  additions  to  "  Me- 
lanie "  and  earlier  volumes,  except  those  just 
mentioned  as  printed  in  the  "  New  Mirror,"  and 
the  lines  on  the  death  of  President  Harrison, 
which  were  much  admired  at  the  time.  They 
were  in  anapestics,  an  unusual  metre  with  him, 
but  one  which  he  handled  not  without  fire  in 
this  excellent  elegy.  "  Lady  Jane  "  was  a  society 
poem  in  some  two  hundred  "  Don  Juan  "  stan 
zas  and  was  by  no  means  the  worst  of  the  many 
imitations  of  Byron's  inimitable  masterpiece  — 
if  the  bull  may  be  pardoned.  The  hero  was 
the  inevitable  dandy  poet,  —  this  time  he  was 
twenty-two,  —  and  the  heroine  who  doted  on  him 
with  a  half  motherly  affection  was  a  well  pre 
served  English  countess  of  forty,  wedded  to  a 
decrepit  but  accommodating  earl.  The  noble 
pair  go  traveling,  with  the  boyish  poet  in  their 
train,  and  coming  to  Rome,  the  latter  becomes 
enamored  of  an  Italian  marchioness  and  cuts 
loose  from  Lady  Jane,  who,  "  having  loved  too 
late  to  dream  of  love  again,"  grows  old  as  best 
she  may.  This  is  all,  but  the  poet  has  caught, 
as  successfully  as  was  possible  for  him,  the  al 
ternate  irony  and  sentiment,  the  rattling  digres- 
siveness,  and  the  eccentric  rhyming  and  auda 
cious  punning  of  his  original.  There  is  a  delicate 
suggestion  of  Lady  Blessington  in  the  heroine  ; 
but  Willis's  English  acquaintances  could  hardly 


THE  NEW  MIRROR.  271 

have  felt  pleased  at  being  served  up  by  name  in 
the  picture  of  a  London  soirSe,  as  "  Savage 
Landor,  wanting  soap  and  sand,"  as  "  frisky 
Bowring,  London's  wisest  bore,"  or  even  as 
"  calm,  old,  lily-white  Joanna  Baillie."  Willis 
was  now  in  considerable  request  for  lectures 
and  occasional  poems.  On  August  17,  1841, 
he  delivered  a  poem  before  the  Linonian  So 
ciety  of  Yale  College,  extracts  from  which  ap 
pear  in  his  collected  poems  as  "  The  Elms  of 
New  Haven."  This  address  was  not  without 
touches  of  fancy  and  tender  reminders  to  the 
assembled  scholars  of 

"  The  green  tent  where  your  harness  was  put  on," 

and  of  summer  nights  in  Academus,  when  the 
bird 

"  Sang  a  half  carol  as  the  moon  wore  on 
And  looked  into  his  nest." 

But  the  blank  verse  carried  him  along  into  that 
smooth  diffuseness  which  was  his  besetting  sin, 
and  the  poem,  as  a  whole,  did  not  rise  above 
commonplace.  It  compares  but  poorly  with 
Dr.  Holmes's  noble  "Astraea,"  delivered  in  1850 
before  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  society  at  New 
Haven  by  a  poet  who,  though  the  son  of  another 
Alma  Mater,  gracefully  acknowledged  himself 
the  grandson  of  Yale.  At  another  time,  in  re 
sponse  to  an  invitation  from  James  T.  Fields  to 
recite  a  poem  in  Boston,  Willis  wrote  :  "  I  took 


272  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

the  time  to  consider  whether  there  could  be 
such  a  thing  as  an  effective  spoken  poem.  I 
am  satisfied  now,  that  my  style  depends  so  much 
on  those  light  shades  which  would  be  lost  on 
more  ears  than  two  at  a  time,  that  I  should 
make  an  utter  failure."  In  1843  he  lectured 
on  the  formation  of  character  before  the  Mer 
cantile  Library  Association  of  Baltimore,  and 
the  audience  —  a  large  one  —  was  disappointed 
by  the  serious  nature  of  the  address.  A  "  Lec 
ture  on  Fashion  "  given  before  the  New  York 
Lyceum  and  published  in  1844  was  more  char 
acteristic,  at  least  in  subject.  He  lectured  also 
in  Boston  and  Albany,  perhaps  in  other  places, 
but  without  marked  success,  being  an  indifferent 
orator  and  not  at  home  on  the  platform.  "  The 
calling  on  a  hen  for  an  egg,  while  she  stands  on 
the  fence,  would  seem  to  me  reasonable,"  said 
he,  "  in  comparison  with  asking  for  my  senti 
ments,  to  be  delivered  on  my  legs." 

In  the  issue  of  the  "  New  Mirror  "  for  Sep 
tember  28,  1844,  the  editors  announced  that 
they  had  been  driven  out  of  the  field  of  weekly 
journalism  by  the  United  States  Post  Office. 
The  "  Mirror,"  being  stitched,  could  not  go  at 
newspaper  rates,  but  was  taxed,  at  the  caprice 
of  postmasters,  from  two  to  fifteen  cents  a  copy. 
This  more  than  doubled  the  price  to  country 
readers  and  killed  the  mail  subscription.  Ee- 


THE  NEW  MIRROR.  273 

monstrances  addressed  to  the  authorities  at 
Washington  only  brought,  in  reply,  a  letter  of 
"  sesquipedalian  flummery."  Accordingly  the 
editors  decided  to  change  the  shape  of  the  paper 
and  publish  it  as  a  daily.  The  first  number  of 
the  "  Evening  Mirror "  came  out  October  7, 
1844.  It  was  published  every  day  in  the  week 
but  Sunday,  and  ran  till  the  close  of  the  follow 
ing  year,  under  the  joint  conduct  of  Morris, 
Willis,  and  Hiram  Fuller.  The  last  was  a 
young  man,  and  a  far-away  cousin  of  Margaret 
Fuller.  He  continued  the  paper,  under  the 
same  name,  for  years  after  his  partners  had  left 
him.  It  was  of  Fuller  that  Bennett  said,  "  We 
saw  the  editor  of  the  4  Evening  Mirror,'  the 
other  day,  treating  his  subscribers  to  an  excur 
sion  ;  he  drove  them  all  down  Broadway  to  the 
Battery  in  an  omnibus."  Edgar  Poe  was  en 
gaged  upon  the  "  Evening  Mirror  "  as  critic  and 
sub-editor  in  the  autumn  of  1844,  and  remained 
upon  it  about  six  months.  His  relations  with 
Willis  were  of  the  pleasantest.  The  latter  tried 
to  befriend  him  in  various  ways  and  lent  him 
the  hearty  support  of  his  paper.  His  recollec 
tions  of  his  former  associate  were  given  in  the 
"  Home  Journal  "  for  October  13,  1849,  shortly 
after  Poe's  death,  in  an  article  bearing  generous 
testimony  to  his  perfect  regularity,  reasonable 
ness,  and  courtesy,  while  engaged  upon  the 

18 


274  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

"  Mirror."  Poe's  own  estimate  of  Willis  is 
given  at  some  length  in  his  series  of  papers  on 
"  The  Literati  of  New  York."  *  It  is  friendly 
in  tone,  but  quite  impartial  and  discriminating. 
Its  literary  criticism  need  not  be  here  repeated, 
but  Poe's  personal  impressions  of  Willis  are 
worth  giving :  — 

"  Mr.  Willis's  career,"  he  writes,  "  has  naturally 
made  him  enemies  among  the  envious  host  of  dunces 
whom  he  has  outstripped  in  the  race  for  fame  ;  and 
these  his  personal  manner  (a  little  tinctured  with 
reserve,  brusquerie,  or  even  haughtiness)  is  by  no 
means  adapted  to  conciliate.  He  has  innumerable 
warm  friends,  however,  and  is  himself  a  warm  friend. 
He  is  impulsive,  generous,  bold,  impetuous,  vacillat 
ing,  irregularly  energetic,  apt  to  be  hurried  into 
error,  but  incapable  of  deliberate  wrong.  He  is  yet 
young  and,  without  being  handsome  in  the  ordinary 
sense,  is  a  remarkably  well-looking  man.  In  height 
he  is  perhaps  five  feet  eleven  and  justly  proportioned. 
His  figure  is  put  in  the  best  light  by  the  ease  and  as 
sured  grace  of  his  carriage.  His  whole  person  and 
personal  demeanor  bear  about  them  the  traces  of 
4  good  society.'  His  face  is  somewhat  too  full  or 
rather  heavy  in  its  lower  proportions.  Neither  his 
nose  nor  his  forehead  can  be  defended.  The  latter 
would  puzzle  phrenology.  His  eyes  are  a  dull  bluish 

1  See  also  his  paper  on  The  American  Drama,  for  an  elabo 
rate  review  of  Tortesa,  which,  with  all  its  defects,  he  thought 
the  best  American  play. 


THE  NEW  MIRROR.  275 

gray  and  small.  His  hair  is  of  a  rich  brown,  curling 
naturally  and  luxuriantly.  His  mouth  is  well  cut, 
the  teeth  fine,  the  expression  of  the  smile  intellectual 
and  winning.  He  converses  little,  well  rather  than 
fluently,  and  in  a  subdued  tone." 

It  was  after  Morris  and  Willis  had  dissolved 
their  connection  with  the  "Evening  Mirror" 
that  that  journal  published  the  article,  by 
Thomas  Dunn  English,  reflecting  severely  on 
Poe's  character,  for  which  he  sued  Fuller  and 
recovered  $225  damages.  His  "  Raven  "  was 
written  while  he  was  on  the  paper,  and  first  pub 
lished  anonymously  in  the  "  American  Review." 
Willis  reprinted  it  in  the  "  Mirror  "  over  Poe's 
name,  with  a  send-off,  in  which  he  said,  "  We 
regard  it  as  the  most  effective  single  example  of 
fugitive  poetry  ever  published  in  this  country."  a 

The  year  1844-45  was  a  sad  one  for  Willis. 
In  the  preface  to  "  Poems  of  Passion,"  1843,  he 
had  written,  "  We  are  accused  daily  of  writing 
nothing  that  is  not  frivolous.  These  poems  are 
from  the  undercurrent  of  our  frivolity ;  and 
they  run  as  deep,  we  are  inclined  to  think,  as  a 
man  ever  sees  into  his  heart  till  it  is  rent  open 
with  a  calamity  —  and  calamity  as  yet,  we  never 
knew."  But  in  March,  1844,  he  lost  that  ad 
mirable  mother  whose  love  had  been  to  him  both 

1  See  Gill's  Life  of  Poe  for  a  fac-simile  letter  of  Willis  to 
Poe. 


276  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

a  stay  and  an  inspiration.  His  youngest  sister, 
Ellen,  had  died  the  month  before.  And  a  year 
later,  March  25,  1845,  at  the  Astor  House, 
his  wife  died  in  childbirth.  "  An  angel  without 
fault  or  foible  "  is  the  comment  which  the 
broken-hearted  husband  wrote  against  the  rec 
ord  of  her  death  in  his  note-book.  The  child, 
a  girl,  for  whom  he  had  chosen  the  name 
of  Blanche,  was  born  dead.  The  labor  of  edit 
ing  a  daily  paper  had  proved  unexpectedly  bur 
densome  and,  added  to  the  grief  of  his  bereave 
ment,  left  him  greatly  exhausted  and  under  the 
need  of  breaking  away  from  work  for  a  time. 
In  the  early  summer  of  1845  he  sailed  on  the 
Britannic  for  Liverpool,  taking  with  him  his 
little  daughter  Imogen,  and  the  faithful  colored 
woman,  Harriet  Jacobs,  who  had  been  the  child's 
nurse  during  Mrs.  Willis's  lifetime.  Before 
starting  for  England  he  had  gathered  up  his 
recent  story  contributions  to  the  magazines  and 
published  them,  together  with  "  Inklings  of  Ad 
venture,"  and  "  Romance  of  Travel,"  in  a  single 
large  volume,  "  Dashes  at  Life  with  a  Free  Pen 
cil."  This  was  divided  into  three  parts:  "High 
Life  in  Europe  and  American  Life,"  "  Inklings 
of  Adventure,"  and  "  Loiterings  of  Travel." 
A  fourth  part,  "  Ephemera,"  was  added  in 
1854.  The  tales  which  he  had  written  since 
1840,  and  which  now  appeared  for  the  first  time 


THE  NEW  MIRROR.  277 

in  book  form,  exhibited  more  range  and  variety 
of  subject  than  his  two  previous  collections,  but 
a  decided  falling  off  in  literary  quality.  Those 
who  had  seen  promise  in  some  of  the  earlier 
stories  —  such  as  "  Edith  Linsey,"  "  The  Picker 
and  Filer,"  and  "  The  Lunatic's  Skate  "  —  of  a 
capacity  for  stronger  and  graver  work  were  dis 
appointed  by  these  later  "  Dashes."  None  of 
them  was  without  clever  strokes,  but  they  were, 
as  a  whole,  very  light.  The  "  High  Life " 
stories  were  mostly  repetitions  of  Willis's  favor 
ite  plot.  Sometimes  the  hero  is  a  spoiled  child 
of  genius,  as  in  "  Countess  Nyschriem  and  the 
Handsome  Artist,"  and  "  Leaves  from  the  Heart 
Book  of  Ernest  Clay."  Sometimes,  as  in  "  The 
Revenge  of  the  Signor  Basil,"  he  is  a  designing 
villain.  Again,  as  in  "Love  and  Diplomacy," 
he  turns  out  to  be  a  very  great  person  in  dis 
guise,  who  flings  off  his  cloak  in  the  denoue 
ment  and  confounds  his  adversaries.  In  "  Get 
ting  to  Windward,"  he  is  a  French  adventurer, 
for  whom  three  English  peeresses  contend — like 
the  Goddesses  on  Ida.  In  "  Flirtation  and  Fox 
Chasing,"  he  is  a  Kentucky  lady-killer,  sojourn 
ing  at  an  English  country  house.  In  "  Lady 
Rachel,"  he  is  nobody  in  particular.  But  in 
each  and  all  of  these  protean  shapes,  he  is 
equally  fascinating  and  invincible.  In  "  Beware 
of  Dogs  and  Waltzing,"  the  author  entered  the 


278  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS.       . 

confessional  with  even  less  precaution  than 
usual.  It  is  quite  plain  to  one  reading  between 
the  lines,  that  the  hero,  Mr.  Lindsay  Maud, 
with  his  retroussS  nose,  sanguineous  tint,  curly 
hair,  and  dimpled  chin,  is  no  other  than  Willis 
himself;  that  the  Surrey  manor  where  the  scene 
is  laid  is  Shirley  Park ;  that  its  hospitable  oc 
cupants,  the  Becktons,  are  in  truth  the  Skinner 
family  ;  that  Mabel  Brown,  the  heroine,  is  iden 
tical  with  Miss  Mary  Stace  ;  and,  lastly,  that 
Miss  Blakeney,  the  dazzling  but  heartless  heir 
ess,  whose  hand  Mr.  Maud's  hostess  kindly  des 
tines  for  her  young  protege,  but  whom,  yield 
ing  to  his  better  angel,  he  flings  overboard  in 
favor  of  the  gentler  and  sweeter  Mabel,  is  a 
certain  belle  of  fortune,  who  figures  in  Willis's 
private  correspondence  as  "  trotted  out "  by 
Mrs.  Skinner  for  his  inspection  with  a  view  to 
his  making  a  rich  marriage. 

In  "  A  Revelation  of  a  Previous  Life  "  and 
"  The  Phantom  Head  upon  the  Table,"  the  su 
pernatural  is  introduced,  but  not  with  success. 
Willis  had  not  the  weird,  haunting  imagination 
of  Hawthorne  or  Poe.  He  does  not  prepare  the 
reader's  belief  by  creating  the  atmosphere  of  mys 
tery  required  for  illusion.  In  the  midst  of  the 
fashionable,  real  life  where  they  are  set,  his  su 
pernatural  incidents  lose  their  effect,  and  have  no 
vraisemblance.  Nor  was  he  more  at  home  in 


THE  NEW  MIRROR.  279 

broad  comedy.  His  humor  —  and  he  had  humor 
—  was  delicate  rather  than  robust ;  was  made  out 
of  irony,  pleasantry,  and  gay  spirits,  and  de 
pended  more  upon  situation  than  character.  If 
the  situation  was  droll,  the  humor  was  good ; 
otherwise  not.  "Miss  Jones's  Son,"  "  The  Spirit 

Love  of  lone  S ,"  "  Nora  Mehidy,"  "Meena 

Dimity,"  and  "  Born  to  love  Pigs  and  Chickens" 
were  all  manque.  The  best  of  the  humorous  tales 
is  "  The  Female  Ward,"  which  tells  of  the  em 
barrassments  of  a  rather  fast  young  gentleman  in 
Boston,  who  receives  an  unexpected  consignment, 
in  the  shape  of  a  raw  heiress,  from  a  Southern 
plantation;  her  confiding  parents  intrusting  her 
to  his  guardianship,  with  a  request  that  he  place 
her  at  school  in  some  high-toned  seminary.  His 
difficulties  in  trying  to  perform  this  commission, 
ending  with  his  lodging  her  temporarily  in  a  pri 
vate  lunatic  asylum,  are  very  happily  imagined. 
"  The  Female  Ward  "  would  lend  itself  nicely  to 
the  dramatizer,  and  make  up  into  a  most  amus 
ing  little  farce.  "Those  Ungrateful  Blidg- 
imses  "  was  funny,  but  wicked.  It  was  Willis's 
way  of  avenging  himself  upon  two  maiden  ladies 
with  whom  he  had  fallen  in,  and  subsequently 
fallen  out,  during  his  travels  in  Italy,  and  who, 
on  returning  to  America,  had  circulated  reports 
not  to  his  credit.  He  had  another  hit  at  them 
in  "  Ernest  Clay,"  as  "  two  abominable  old 


280  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

maids  by  the  name  of  Buggins  or  Blidgins,  rep 
resenting  the  scan.  mag.  of  Florence."  The 
story  caused  a  good  deal  of  scandal.  The  victims 
(whose  names  were  thinly  disguised)  were  high 
in  Knickerbocker  social  circles,  and  the  doors 
of  many  of  the  best  houses  in  Albany  and  New 
York  were  closed  forever  against  Willis,  as  a 
consequence  of  this  indiscretion.  There  was 
even  some  rumor  in  the  Albany  newspapers  to 
the  effect  that  he  had  been  challenged  by  a  friend 
of  the  injured  ladies,  and  had  declined  the  chal 
lenge,  but  this  he  denied.  "  Kate  Crediford  " 
is  a  clever  specimen  of  anti-climax.  The  writer 
sees  an  old  love  at  the  theatre  and,  fancying 
that  she  looks  unhappy,  his  flame  revives,  and 
he  goes  home  and  writes  her  an  impassioned  dec 
laration.  His  letter  is  answered  by  the  lady's 
husband,  who  informs  him  of  her  recent  mar 
riage,  and  explains  her  pensiveness  by  the  fact 
that  she  had  eaten  too  heartily  of  unripe  fruit 
before  going  to  the  play.  In  "The  Poet  and 
the  Mandarin  "  and  "  The  Inlet  of  Peach  Blos 
soms,"  the  descriptions  are  richly  fanciful.  But 
the  most  truly  imaginative  of  all  these  tales  is 
"The  Ghost  Ball  at  Congress  Hall."  The 
theme  is  one  that  would  have  delighted  Haw 
thorne,  and  though  he  might  have  treated  it 
more  meaningly,  he  could  not  have  improved 
upon  its  wild,  half -eerie  gayety,  with  its  under- 


THE  NEW  MIRROR.  281 

current  of  regret  —  the  old  Horatian  regret  for 
the  shortness  of  life  and  vanished  youth.  A  su 
perannuated  beau,  lingering  in  the  empty  col 
onnade  of  Congress  Hall  after  the  close  of  the 
Saratoga  season,  sees  a  spectral  procession  of 
coaches  drive  up  to  the  door  and  deposit,  one 
after  another,  their  loads  of  ladies  with  escorts 
and  baggage.  Later  in  the  evening,  peering  in 
through  the  ball-room  windows,  his  brain  reels 
as  he  beholds  the  well-remembered  belles  and 
dandies  —  apparently  grown  no  older  —  of  the 
golden  age  of  the  springs,  the  days  of  "  the 
Albany  regency."  They  dance  to  the  same  old 
waltz  music,  played  by  the  same  old  negro  fid 
dlers,  by  the  light  of  spermaceti  tapers  that  floods 
the  dusty  evergreens  "  with  a  weird  mysterious- 
ness,  an  atmosphere  of  magic,  even  in  the  burning 
of  the  candles,"  and  drink  champagne  of  "  the 
exploded  color,  rosy  wine  suited  to  the  bright 
days  when  all  things  were  tinted  rose." 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  there  is  an  abun 
dance  of  pretty  and  clever  things  scattered 
through  these  tales  of  Willis.  "  Flirtation"  - 
as  an  instance  of  his  epigrams  —  "is  a  circulat 
ing  library  in  which  we  seldom  ask  twice  for  the 
same  volume."  "  His  politeness,"  he  says  of  one 
of  his  characters,  "  had  superseded  his  charac 
ter  altogether."  He  tells  of  "  a  person  of  excel 
lent  family,  after  the  fashion  of  a  hill  of  pota- 


282  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

toes,  the  best  part  of  it  under  ground  ;  "  and  of 
the  Frenchman  who  could  trace  his  lineage  back 
to  "  the  man  who  spoke  French  in  the  confusion 
of  Babel."  "  Mr.  Potts's  income  was  a  net  an 
swer  to  his  morning  prayer :  it  provided  his 
daily  bread."  "  Wigwam  vs.  Almacks,"  which 
follows  out  the  suggestions  of  a  true  story  told 
in  "  A  1'Abri,"  is  not  very  satisfactory  as  a  fic 
tion,  but  is  worth  noticing  for  the  lovely  descrip 
tion,  with  which  it  opens,  of  a  wayside  spring  in 
the  valley  of  the  Chemung. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

1845-1852. 

THIRD  VISIT   TO    ENGLAND  —  THE   HOME 
JOURNAL. 

ON  his  arrival  in  London,  Willis  was  attacked 
with  a  brain  fever,  which  confined  him  to  his 
bed  for  a  fortnight.  As  soon  as  he  could  get 
about  he  brought  his  little  daughter  to  see  Lady 
Blessington,  and  then  took  her  and  her  nurse  to 
Steventon  Vicarage,  near  Abingdon,  in  Berk 
shire,  to  stay  with  her  aunt,  the  wife  of  Rev. 
William  Vincent,  formerly  of  Bolney  Priory. 
He  took  lodgings  for  himself  in  the  village  near 
by,  and,  after  a  short  trip  to  Bath,  returned  to 
London  and  spent  some  time  in  visiting,  dining 
out,  sight-seeing,  and  making  new  acquaintances. 
He  met  a  Mr.  Stiles  of  Georgia,  an  old  school 
mate,  who  was  passing  through  England  on  his 
way  to  Vienna,  where  he  had  lately  been  ap 
pointed  chargg  d'affaires,  and  who  gave  him  a 
complimentary  appointment  as  attach^  to  his  le 
gation,  an  addition  to  his  passport  of  the  kind 
that  had  proved  so  serviceable  in  the  days  of  his 


284  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

"  Pencillings."  This  determined  him  to  shape 
his  course  for  the  capital  of  Austria,  taking  in 
Germany,  which  was  new  to  him,  on  the  way. 
Leaving  his  daughter  at  Steventon,  he  crossed 
the  Channel,  went  up  the  Rhine,  and  joined  his 
brother  Richard,  who  was  studying  music  at 
Leipsic.  Here  he  passed  a  month,  and  then,  ac 
companied  by  his  brother,  went  on  to  Dresden. 
There  the  two  parted,  and  Willis  traveled  alone 
to  Berlin,  where  he  was  again  seriously  ill,  and 
was  kindly  ministered  to  by  his  old  friend  and 
associate  on  the  "  New  York  Mirror,"  T.  S.  Fay, 
at  that  time  secretary  of  legation  at  Berlin. 
Mr.  Henry  Wheaton,  the  American  minister,  at 
tached  Willis  also  to  the  Prussian  mission. 
But  of  these  appointments  and  the  opportunities 
they  promised  he  was  unable  to  avail  himself. 
Continued  ill  health  forced  him  to  abandon  his 
journey  to  Vienna,  and  to  make  his  way  back  to 
England,  whence  he  sailed  for  home  in  the 
spring  of  1846.  He  had  meant  to  leave  Imo 
gen  with  her  mother's  family  for  a  time,  to  be 
put  to  school  in  England.  But  his  heart  failed 
him  at  the  last,  and  he  brought  her  back  with 
him  to  America,  sending  her,  still  in  charge  of 
her  nurse,  to  live  with  his  sister,  Mrs.  Louis 
Dwight,  in  Boston.  He  himself  took  rooms  in 
New  York  until  other  arrangements  could  be 
made.  His  child's  nurse,  Harriet  Jacobs,  who 


THIRD    VISIT  TO  ENGLAND.  285 

was  in  his  employ  from  1842  to  1861,  was  a 
remarkable  woman,  whose  career,  if  fully  told, 
would  form  an  interesting  chapter  in  the  history 
of  American  slavery.  She  was  an  escaped  slave 
from  a  plantation  near  Edenton,  North  Caro 
lina.  She  had  run  away  from  her  master  when 
a  young  woman,  and  taken  refuge  with  a  family 
of  free  negroes,  her  kinsfolk.  They  kept  her  hid 
den  for  five  years  in  a  cubby  under  the  roof,  dur 
ing  which  time  she  supported  herself  by  fine 
needle-work  which  her  friends  sold  for  her  in 
town.  At  last  she  escaped  to  the  North,  and  was 
engaged  by  Willis  as  a  house  servant  when  he 
went  to  Glenmary.  Her  attachment  to  the  in 
terests  of  the  family  during  the  whole  period  of 
her  service  was  a  beautiful  instance  of  the  fidel 
ity  and  affection  which  sometimes,  but  not  often, 
distinguish  the  relation  of  master  and  servant 
even  in  this  land  of  change.  Mrs.  Jacobs's 
former  owners,  having  got  wind  in  some  way  of 
her  whereabouts,  came  North  in  quest  of  her,  and 
spared  no  pains  to  reclaim  the  runaway.  Sev 
eral  times  she  had  to  leave  the  Willises  and  go 
into  hiding  at  Boston  and  elsewhere.  At  last, 
tired  of  these  alarms,  Willis  sacrificed  whatever 
scruples  he  might  have  had  against  such  a  step, 
and  bought  her  freedom  out  and  out.  When 
the  civil  war  began  she  went  to  Washington,  and 
employed  her  practical  abilities,  which  were  of 


286          ,     NATHANIEL   PARKER   WILLIS. 

a  high  order,  in  the  post  of  matron  to  a  soldiers' 
hospital.  In  that  city  she  is  still  living,  at  an 
advanced  age. 

Though  ill  nearly  all  the  time  of  this  his  third 
trip  abroad,  Willis  managed  to  write  a  number 
of  "  Invalid  Letters  "  to  the  "  Evening  Mirror," 
which  were  collected  in  "  Famous  Persons  and 
Places  "  and  in  "  Eural  Letters."  They  were 
scarcely  worth  preserving.  England  was  now  a 
twice-told  tale,  and  in  Germany,  which  was  a 
pasture  new,  he  was  too  tired  and  sick  and  borne 
down  by  his  recent  bereavement  to  take  much 
interest  in  anything.  His  articles  about  the 
great  fair  at  Leipsic  —  "  What  I  saw  at  the 
Fair,"  in  "  Godey's  "  for  October,  1847  ;  and 
"On  Dress,"  in  "The  Opal"  for  1848,  and 
"  Godey's"  for  June,  1849  —  were  the  most  con 
siderable  literary  results  of  the  journey.  He 
also  superintended  the  publication  of  an  English 
edition  of  "  Dashes  at  Life,"  in  three  volumes, 
and  came  home  under  engagement  to  write  for 
the  London  "  Morning  Chronicle." 

Meanwhile  the  editorial  corps  of  the  "  Even 
ing  Mirror  "  had  tapered  down  to  Hiram  Ful 
ler.  Willis  had  practically  retired  from  any 
active  share  in  its  management  when  he  left  the 
country  in  the  spring  of  1845.  He  was  still 
abroad  when  Morris  withdrew  from  it  and 
started  a  new  paper,  the  "  National  Press,"  to- 


THE  HOME  JOURNAL.  287 

ward  the  close  of  the  same  year.  Willis  joined 
him  in  this  enterprise  as  soon  as  he  got  back 
from  England.  During  the  spring  and  summer 
of  1846  he  was  often  in  Washington,  as  corre 
spondent  of  the  "  National  Press "  and  the 
"  Morning  Chronicle,"  and  while  there  he  met 
Miss  Cornelia  Grinnell,  the  niece  and  adopted 
daughter  of  the  Hon.  Joseph  Grinnell,  who  was 
then  representative  in  Congress  from  New  Bed 
ford,  Massachusetts.  To  this  lady  he  was  mar 
ried  on  October  1,  1846,  the  eleventh  anniver 
sary  of  his  first  marriage.  She  was  his  junior 
by  nearly  twenty  years,  but  she  united  to  her 
graces  of  person  and  character  a  penetrating 
mind  and  an  uncommon  energy  and  firmness  of 
will,  which  made  her  an  invaluable  helpmate 
through  the  years  of  trial  that  were  in  store  for 
both.  On  the  21st  of  November  following,  the 
name  of  the  "  National  Press  "  was  changed  to 
the  "  Home  Journal,"  under  which  title  the  paper 
has  ever  since  been  published.  This  was  Mor 
ris's  and  Willis's  final  and  most  prosperous  ex 
periment  in  journalism.  They  both  remained 
connected  with  it  till  death:  in  Willis's  case  a 
service  of  twenty-one  years,  during  which  his  lit 
erary  toil  was  devoted  almost  exclusively  to  build 
ing  up  the  paper.  "  For  the  cultivation  of  the 
memorable,  the  progressive,  and  the  beautiful," 
ran  the  legend  upon  its  title-page,  followed  by  a 


288  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

sentence  from  Goethe,  which  still  stands  as  the 
motto  of  the  paper,  and  would  have  served  well 
enough  as  the  motto  of  Willis's  own  career : 
"  We  should  do  our  utmost  to  encourage  the 
beautiful,  for  the  useful  encourages  itself."  It 
was  not  a  very  solid  type  of  literature  which  was 
fostered  by  the  "  Home  Journal,"  but  it  made 
for  itself  a  peculiar  constituency,  and  a  place  in 
the  world  of  letters  which  it  still  successfully  oc 
cupies,  under  the  editorship  of  Morris  Phillips, 
General  Morris's  adopted  son,  who  has  carried 
out  the  traditions  of  the  paper  as  established  by 
his  predecessors.  It  was  and  is  the  organ  of 
"  japonicadom,"  the  journal  of  society  and  ga 
zette  of  fashionable  news  and  fashionable  litera 
ture,  addressing  itself  with  assiduous  gallantry 
to  "  the  ladies." 

Willis  set  himself  more  especially  in  both  the 
"  New  Mirror "  and  the  "  Home  Journal "  to 
portray  the  town.  He  became  a  sort  of  Knick 
erbocker  Spectator,  and  his  "  Ephemera,"  pub 
lished  in  1854,  is  a  running  record  of  the  notabil 
ities  of  New  York  for  a  dozen  years.  He  chron 
icled  the  operas  and  theatres  :  Ole  Bull,  Jenny 
Lind,  and  Macready ;  the  shops,  the  omnibuses, 
the  endless  procession  of  Broadway,  the  museum, 
the  art  galleries,  the  Tombs,  the  Alhambra,  the 
Five  Points,  the  Croton  water,  the  cafes,  the 
hotels,  the  balls  and  receptions,  the  changes  in 


THE  HOME  JOURNAL.  289 

equipages,  customs,  dress.  He  grew  to  be  a 
recognized  arbiter  elegantiarum,  and  his  corre 
spondence  columns  were  crowded  with  appeals 
on  knotty  points  of  etiquette  or  costume.  His 
decisions  of  these  social  problems  were  always 
marked  by  good  sense  and  good  taste.  There 
are  many  nice  bits  in  "  Ephemera,"  and  some 
little  wholes,  —  like  the  letter  from  Saratoga, 
"  To  the  Julia  of  Some  Years  Ago,"  —  which 
deserve  to  be  rescued  from  the  oblivion  of  a 
book  of  scraps  and  trifles.  He  was  a  skillful 
paragrapher ;  he  had  unfailing  tact  and  knew 
when  to  stop.  Above  all,  he  was  eminently  hu 
man  ;  his  gregariousness  and  his  cheerful  phi 
losophy  cast  a  gleam  of  their  own  on  this  look 
ing-glass  of  urban  life.  He  imported  a  rural 
air  into  the  city ;  watched  how  April  greened 
the  grass  in  the  public  squares,  and  June  spread 
the  leaves  in  Trinity  Churchyard ;  stopped  to 
pick  "  a  clovertop  or  an  aggravating  dandelion 
'twixt  post  office  and  city  hall ;  "  and  discovered 
even  in  the  stream  that  washed  the  curbstone, 
"  a  clear  brook  —  a  brook  with  a  song,  tripping 
as  musically  (when  the  carts  are  not  going  by) 
as  the  beloved  brook "  in  Glemnary.  Pan,  we 
know,  has  been  found  in  Wall  Street ;  and  Wil 
lis  contrived  to  find  something  like  a  nymph  in 
the  waste  of  the  Park  fountain.  When  his 
work  kept  him  at  the  desk  all  through  the  hot 

19 


290  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

summer,  he  borrowed  a  breeze  from  "  the  outer 
most  bastion  of  Castle  Garden,"  and  made  the 
Jersey  ferryboat  his  "  substitute  for  a  private 
yacht." 

When  he  came  to  New  York  to  live,  in  ,1842, 
and  during  his  continued  residence  there  for 
more  than  ten  years  from  that  date,  Manhattan 
was  by  no  means  the  metropolis  that  it  is  to 
day,  though  it  had  begun  to  assume  already  that 
cosmopolitan  and  intensely  commercial  char 
acter  which  distinguishes  it  from  all  other  Amer 
ican  cities.  It  had  a  considerable  and  swiftly 
growing  foreign  population,  and  its  society  was 
marked  by  a  liveliness  and  extravagance  which 
contrasted  with  the  plainer  and  more  earnest 
tone  prevailing  in  Boston,  and  with  the  some 
what  provincial  cast  of  Philadelphia  life.  The 
Battery  was  still  the  fashionable  promenade, 
Canal  Street  was  "  up  town,"  Hoboken,  a  rural 
suburb,  Pine,  Ann,  and  William  Streets,  and 
the  Bowling  Green  were  genteel  residence  quar 
ters.  The  old  Park  Theatre  was  —  after  the 
burning  of  the  National  —  the  only  respectable 
playhouse,  until  Niblo's  was  opened  in  what  was 
then  the  outskirt  of  the  town.  New  York  prided 
itself,  moreover,  on  being  a  literary  centre.  The 
term  "  Knickerbocker  School,"  which  has  been 
invented  to  describe  a  group  of  metropolitan 
writers  who  owed  their  inspiration,  in  some  sort, 


THE   HOME  JOURNAL.  291 

to  Washington  Irving,  is  of  uncertain  applica 
tion  ;  and  there  was  no  such  cohesion  among  the 
members  of  the  group  as  to  warrant  the  name 
of  a  school.  But  if  the  term  be  extended  to 
cover  all  the  authors  whose  birth  or  long  resi 
dence  identified  them  with  New  York  city,  it 
may  include  Bryant  and  Halleck,  who  were  the 
most  prominent  literary  figures  when  Willis 
went  there  to  live,  though  both  of  them,  like 
him,  were  of  New  England  birth  and  breeding. 
Bryant  had  been  since  1826  editor  of  the 
"Evening  Post"  and  Halleck,  who  had  almost 
ceased  to  write  and  was  devoting  himself  exclu 
sively  to  his  duties  as  secretary  to  Mr.  John 
Jacob  Astor,  left  the  city  in  1849,  and  retired 
to  his  old  home  in  Guilford,  Connecticut.  With 
both  of  these  Willis  was  more  or  less  intimate, 
meeting  them  frequently  at  dinners  and  in  gen 
eral  society.  Irving  himself,  the  starting-point 
of  the  Knickerbocker  writers,  was  out  of  the 
country  when  Willis  settled  in  New  York,  hav 
ing  gone  as  minister  to  Spain  in  1842.  He  came 
back  in  1846  and  took  up  his  residence  at  Sunny- 
side.  Cooper  was  living  at  Cooperstown,  where 
Willis  made  him  a  flying  visit  and  renewed  the 
acquaintance  so  pleasantly  begun  at  Paris  in 
1832.  This  was  in  the  summer  of  1848,  which 
Willis  spent  at  Sharon  Springs,  recovering  from 
an  attack  of  rheumatism.  Theodore  Fay  too 


292  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

was  abroad,  filling  diplomatic  posts  in  Germany 
and  Switzerland.  Years  after,  on  his  return  to 
America,  he  visited  Willis  at  Idlewild,  and  the 
latter  found  him  greatly  aged  and  saddened 
since  the  days  when  he  wrote  mild  town  satires 
and  humorous  sketches  for  the  "  New  York 
Mirror."  Eastburn,  Sands,  and  Drake  were 
all  dead,  and  Paulding  had  signalized  the  close 
of  his  literary  career  by  publishing  a  collection 
of  his  works  in  numerous  volumes.  He  too  had 
been  a  contributor  to  the  old  "  Mirror,"  and  so 
had  another  of  the  Knickerbockers,  Charles 
Fenno  Hoffman,  who  had  once  edited  the  paper 
for  a  month,  before  Willis  had  any  connection 
with  it.  Hoffman,  who  died  just  the  other  day, 
is  known  to  this  generation  almost  solely  by  his 
still  popular  song,  "  Sparkling  and  Bright,"  and 
his  hardly  less  popular  "Monterey."  The  former 
is  sung  by  collegians  and  the  latter  declaimed 
by  school-boys.  He  was  the  first  editor  of  the 
"  Knickerbocker  Magazine."  His  "  Winter  in 
the  West  "  and  his  novel,  "  Greyslaer,"  founded 
on  the  famous  Beauchamp  tragedy  in  North  Car 
olina,  had  wide  currency  in  their  time,  and  his 
amusing  story,  "  The  Man  in  the  Reservoir," 
may  still  be  read  with  enjoyment.  He  was  a 
man  of  many  friends,  greatly  beloved  for  his 
frank  and  cordial  nature.  By  1846  he  had  al 
ready  begun  to  show  symptoms  of  the  mental 


THE  HOME  JOURNAL.  293 

disease  which  issued  in  his  chronic  insanity. 
He  kept  on  writing  up  to  1850,  when  it  was 
found  necessary  to  send  him  to  an  asylum,  in 
which  confinement  he  lived  for  over  thirty  years. 
Hoffman  once  said  of  Willis's  eyes  that  they 
"always  seemed  to  have  nothing  but  cold  spec 
ulation  in  them,  —  to  be  two  holes,  looking  out 
through  a  stone  wall."  Then  there  were  Ver- 
planck,  the  editor  of  Shakespeare,  and  Duyckinck 
the  compiler  of  the  "  Cyclopaedia  of  American 
Literature,"  and  many  forgotten  worthies,  whose 
names  may  be  read  in  such  limbos  of  departed 
fame  as  Poe's  "  Literati  of  New  York."  Many 
of  these  literati  used  to  meet  each  other  infor 
mally  at  the  weekly  receptions  given  by  Miss 
Anne  Lynch  (now  Mrs.  Botta)  the  poetess,  and 
author  of  the  "  Handbook  of  Universal  Litera 
ture,"  whose  hospitable  parlors  have  been  for 
forty  years  a  rallying  place  for  interesting  and 
distinguished  people.  With  this  lady  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Willis  formed  a  close  and  lasting  friend 
ship.  Willis  used  to  go  often  to  Horace  Gree- 
ley's,  where  he  got  interested  for  a  time  in 
spirit  rappings,  and  wrote  some  papers  on  the 
subject  in  the  "Home  Journal."  Greeley  once 
urged  him  in  a  letter  (November  18,  1854)  to 
publish  a  volume  of  selections  from  his  lifelong 
writings.  "  I  want  such  a  one,"  he  wrote,  "  for 
my  boy,  so  that,  should  I  live  to  see  him  sixteen, 


294  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

I  may  try  '  Unwritten  Music '  on  him  and  see 
if  it  impresses  him  as  it  did  me  at  about  that 
age,  when  it  appeared." 

During  the  first  winter  and  spring  after  their 
marriage,  Willis  and  his  wife  lived  in  lodgings. 
In  the  autumn  of  1847  they  went  to  house 
keeping  at  No.  19  Ludlow  Place,  where  their 
eldest  son,  Grinnell,  was  born,  April  28,  1848. 
In  the  fall  of  that  year  they  bought  the  house 
No.  198  Fourth  Street,  where  they  remained 
till  the  fall  of  1852.  A  daughter,  Lilian,  was 
born  April  27,  1850. 

For  ten  years  Willis's  tall  and  elegantly 
dressed  figure  was  a  familiar  sight  on  Broadway, 
and  was  often  pointed  out  to  strangers  at  public 
assemblages,  or  in  private  society,  where  his 
agreeable  manners  made  him  a  general  favor 
ite.  He  was  never  what  is  called  a  brilliant 
conversationalist,  but  he  was  an  easy  talker  and 
quick  at  an  impromptu,  many  of  his  "good 
things"  in  which  kind  are  remembered  and 
quoted  by  his  contemporaries.  Thus,  on  one 
occasion,  at  a  dinner  party  in  Washington,  a 
young  lady  who  sat  between  Willis  and  a  gen 
tleman  named  Campbell  was  rather  too  partial 
in  her  attention  to  the  former.  Her  mother 
sitting  opposite,  and  considering  Mr.  Campbell 
a  desirable  parti,  slipped  her  a  note  across  the 
table,  "  Pay  more  attention  to  your  other  neigh- 


THE  HOME  JOURNAL.  295 

bor."  This  being  shown  to  Willis,  he  wrote  on 
the  back  of  it,  — 

"  Dear  Mamma  don't  essay  my  flirtation  to  trammel : 
I  but  strain  at  a  Nat  while  you  swallow  a  Campbell." 

When  in  Germany,  he  went  with  some  gentle 
men  to  visit  a  deaf  and  dumb  asylum  which  had 
an  inscription  over  the  gate,  Stiftung,  etc. 
"  Stifftongue,"  said  Willis,  looking  up  ;  "  very 
appropriate." 

Like  most  men  who  overwork  their  pens,  he 
was  impatient  of  private  correspondence.  When 
in  England,  he  excused  his  brevity  on  the  plea 
that  he  was  paid  a  guinea  a  page  for  everything 
he  wrote,  and  could  not  afford  to  waste  manu 
script.  "  Private  Letters,"  he  declared  in  a 
note  to  Edgar  Poe,  "  are  the  4  last  ounce  that 
breaks  the  camel's  back '  of  a  literary  man."  And 
he  once  answered  a  friend  who  proposed  a  cor 
respondence,  that  to  ask  him  to  write  a  letter 
after  his  day's  work  was  like  asking  a  penny 
postman  to  take  a  walk  in  the  evening  for  the 
pleasure  of  it.  His  letters  to  his  family  and 
friends  have  seldom  any  literary  quality,  though 
they  contain,  now  and  then,  characteristically 
quaint  or  playful  touches.  "  Kiss  mother  on 
her  sad  expression "  is  a  message  in  one  of 
them ;  and  in  another  he  refers  to  one  of  his 
little  nieces  as  the  most  charming  "copy  of 
Willis  "  extant.  Having  been  invited  to  sit  on 


296  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

the  stage,  at  the  Commencement  of  Rutgers 
Female  College,  as  "  the  author  of  '  Absalom  ' 
and  '  Hagar,' "  he  wrote,  "  I  shall  try  to  have 
the  air  of  the  Old  Testament,  but  have  my 
doubts  as  to  success." 

The  easy  degag6  air  of  his  writing  was,  as  is 
usually  the  case  with  seemingly  ready  writers, 
the  result  of  laborious  care.  It  appears  from 
the  testimony  of  Poe,  Parton,  Phillips,  and  others 
who  were  his  associates  on  the  "  Mirror "  or 
"Home  Journal"  and  knew  his  habits  of  com 
position,  that  his  manuscript  was  full  of  erasures 
and  interlineations.  He  blotted,  on  an  average, 
one  line  out  of  every  three,  but  his  copy  was  so 
neatly  and  legibly  prepared  that  the  compositors 
preferred  it  to  "  reprint,"  even  his  erasures  hav 
ing  "a  certain  wavy  elegance."  He  was  like 
wise  very  particular  about  having  his  articles 
printed  just  as  he  wrote  them.  "  My  copy  must 
be  followed,"  he  wrote  to  an  offending  foreman. 
"  If  I  insert  a  comma  in  the  middle  of  a  word, 
do  you  place  it  there  and  ask  no  questions." 
Once  a  slight  alteration  by  Morris  in  the  word 
ing  of  a  paragraph  in  Willis's  manuscript  came 
near  causing  a  quarrel  between  the  two  old 
friends,  "probably  the  only  misunderstanding 
or  disagreement,"  says  Mr.  Phillips,  "  which  oc 
curred  during  the  whole  of  their  literary  life 
and  business  association."  "I  would  not  stay 


THE  HOME  JOURNAL.  297 

one  week  a  partner  with  a  man  who  ventured  to 
alter  a  word  of  my  copy  and  send  it  to  press 
without  my  knowledge,"  wrote  Willis  in  his 
angry  note  to  Morris  on  this  occasion.  Mr.  Phil 
lips  adds  that  "  General  Morris  proved  his  love 
for  Mr.  Willis  by  not  replying  to  this  letter,  but 
simply  wrote  on  the  back  of  it,  '  I  would  have 
received  this  from  no  other  man  living.'  "  From 
similar  testimony  it  appears  that  Willis  took  no 
share  in  the  business  management  of  the  paper, 
never  examined  the  books,  nor  asked  any  ques 
tions  as  to  the  circulation.  He  felt  or  affected 
a  horror  of  figures,  and  confided  the  matter  of 
receipts  and  expenditures  entirely  to  General 
Morris,  between  whom  and  himself,  during  the 
entire  period  of  their  partnership,  no  statement 
of  account  was  ever  rendered.  In  money  mat 
ters  Willis  was  liberal,  —  not  to  say  reckless,  — 
and  his  hospitality  knew  no  limit.  Nor  was  it 
only  his  roof  and  his  table  that  were  at  his 
friends'  service ;  his  literary  latch-string  was  al 
ways  out  to  every  new-comer  in  the  field  of  let 
ters.  It  was  an  honorable  trait  in  his  character, 
and  should  never  be  forgotten  in  casting  his  ac 
count,  that,  whatever  may  have  been  his  foibles, 
the  jealousy  which  is  the  besetting  sin  of  authors 
and  artists  was  not  among  them.  He  was  per 
petually  on  the  lookout  for  young  writers  of 
promise,  and  was  the  first  to  praise  them,  and 


298  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

to  give  circulation  to  their  good  things  by  copy 
ing  them  into  his  columns.  He  was  the  intro 
ducer  and  literary  sponsor  of  many  reputations 
now  fallen  silent,  and  of  some  which  have  sur 
vived.  Among  the  last  were  Mr.  T.  B.  Aldrich 
—  who  succeeded  James  Parton  as  assistant  editor 
of  the  "Home  Journal" — and  Bayard  Taylor. 
The  latter  was  greatly  in  Willis's  debt.  His 
desire  for  travel  was  first  awakened  by  reading 
the  "  Pencillings  by  the  Way "  when  he  was  a 
lad  of  sixteen.  And  afterwards  when  he  came 
to  New  York  to  seek  the  means  for  foreign 
travel  he  applied  at  once  to  the  author  whose 
brilliant  pictures  of  European  life  had  roused 
his  young  enthusiasm.  Willis  befriended  him 
in  every  way ;  gave  him  letters  to  wealthy  gen 
tlemen  in  New  York,  and  bestirred  himself  to 
interest  people  in  his  adventure  and  raise  the 
sum  necessary  to  start  him  on  his  journey.  On 
his  departure  he  gave  him  a  letter  to  his  brother 
Richard,  in  Frankfort,  with  whom  the  young 
handwerksbursch  tarried  for  a  time,  while  he  was 
picking  up  the  German  language.  His  "  Views 
Afoot "  —  the  fruits  of  this  venture  —  were  ded 
icated  to  Willis,  who  contributed  the  preface. 
This  patronage  was  unkindly  referred  to  in  Du- 
ganne's  "Parnassus  in  Pillory,"  a  little  Dunciad 
of  the  old  downright  "  English  Bards  and  Scotch 
Reviewers  "  variety,  which  made  some  noise  in 
New  York  in  the  year  1851 :  — 


THE  HOME  JOURNAL.  299 

"  What  time  Nat  Willis,  in  the  daily  papers, 
Published  receipts  of  shoemakers  and  drapers ; 
What  time,  in  sooth,  his  '  Mirror'  flashed  its  rays, 
Like  Burnum's  '  drummond  '  on  the  Broadway  gaze, 
When  lisping  misses,  fresh  from  seminaries, 
Worshiped  '  mi-boy  '  and  '  brigadier  ' l  as  lares; 
Then  Bayard  Taylor  — protege  of  Natty, 
Dixon-like  walked  into  the  '  literati ; ' 
And  first  to  proper  use  his  genius  put, 
Like  ballet-girls,  by  showing  '  Views  Afoot.'  " 

In  another  part  of  his  squib  the  lampooner  re 
turns  to  the  charge  against  Willis  as  follows :  — 

"  I  almost  passed  by  Willis  — '  ah,  miboy  ! 
Foine  morning !  da-da ! '     Faith  I  wish  him  joy  — 
He 's  forty-three  years  old  —  in  good  condition  — 
And,  positively,  he  has  gained  '  position/ 
Gad !  what  a  polish  '  npper-ten-dom '  gives 
This  executioner  of  adjectives ; 

This  man  who  strangles  English  worse  than  Thuggists, 
And  turns  '  the  trade  '  to  trunk-makers  or  druggists ; 
Labors  on  tragic  plays  that  draw  no  tiers  — 
Writes  under  bridges,  and  tells  tales  of  peers ; 
His  subjects  whey  —  his  language  sugared  curds ; 
Gods  !     What  a  dose  !  —  had  he  to  '  eat  his  words ! ' 
His  '  Sacred  Poems,'  like  a  rogue's  confessions, 
Gain  him  indulgence  for  his  worst  transgressions  : 
His  '  Fugitive  Attempts  '  will  doubtless  live  — 
Oh !  that  more  works  of  his  were  fugitive ! 
Fate  to  his  fame  a  ticklish  place  has  given, 
Like  Mahomet's  coffin,  'twixt  the  earth  and  heaven ; 
But  be  it  as  it  will  —  let  come  what  may  — 
Nat  is  a  star,  his  works  —  the  Milky  Way ! 

1  An  allusion  to  the  interlocutors  in  Willis's  Cloister  and 
Cabinet,  dialogues  between  the  editors  of  the  Mirror  in  not 
very  successful  imitation  of  the  Nodes  Ambrosiance. 


300  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

" '  Why  so  severe  on  Willis  ? '  Julia  cries 
(Who  reads  De  Trobriand  in  an  English  guise). 
Why  so  severe  ?     Because  my  muse  must  make 
Example  stern  for  injured  Poesy's  sake. 
Not  that  Nat  Willis  curls  his  yellow  hair  — 
Not  that  his  sense  can  breathe  but  perfumed  air  — 
Not  that  he  plays  the  ape  or  ass  I  mourn, 
For  ape  and  ass  are  worth  not  even  my  scorn. 
But  that,  with  mind,  and  soul,  and  haply  heart, 
He  yet  hath  stooped  to  act  the  fopling's  part ; 
Trifled  with  all  he  might  have  been  to  be 
The  blase  editor  —  at  forty -three ; 
Flung  off  the  chaplet  which  his  boyhood  won, 
To  wear  the  fool's  cap  of  a  '  man  of  ton.' 
I  lash  not  Willis  even  for  this  his  crime  — 
Through  him  I  strike  the  bastard  tribe  of  rhyme  ; 
The  race  o'er  whom,  in  his  own  native  power, 
Jove-like  mid  satyrs  might  this  Willis  tower  !  " 

Another  young  poet  whose  career  Willis 
watched  with  interest  was  J.  R.  Lowell.  There 
was  a  friendly  correspondence  between  the  two 
in  1843—44,  the  younger  writer  thanking  the 
older  for  his  encouragement,  sending  him  his 
new  volume  of  verse,  and  promising  to  contrib 
ute  to  the  "  Mirror,"  but  remonstrating  with 
him  upon  his  declared  intention  —  in  a  very  ap 
preciative  review  of  Lowell's  poems  in  the  "Mir 
ror  "  —  to  omit  the  James  from  his  "  musical 
surname  "  and  call  him  simply  Russell  Lowell:  — 

"  Suppose  I,  dropping  the  '  N.,'  should  call  you  by 
that  mysterious  middle  letter  —  whose  signification, 
without  reference  to  the  Parish  Register  (or  perhaps 


THE  HOME  JOURNAL.  301 

Griswold's  equally  entertaining  bead-roll)  no  man  can 
fathom  —  and  call  you  '  P.  Willis.'  Under  such 
painful  circumstances  you  could  imagine  how  I  feel, 
when  you  amputate  one  sound  limb  of  my  name. 

"  However,  it  is  too  cold  to  say  any'  more  about  it. 
What  I  have  left  unsaid  shall  be  frozen  up  in  me 
like  the  tune  in  Munchausen's  bugle,  and  thaw  out 
eloquently  and  startlingly  when  I  meet  you  in  the 
warmer  atmosphere  of  New  York  —  as  I  shall  before 
long."  l 

In  point  of  fact  —  if  the  item  is  not  "below 
the  dignity  of  biography  —  this  threat  of  Low 
ell's  to  mind  Willis's  P's  for  him  was  without 
terror  for  the  latter,  who  favored  his  middle 
initial  at  the  expense  of  his  scriptural  and  bap 
tismal  prcenomen,  and  used  to  figure  on  the  title- 
pages  of  his  later  books  as  N.  Parker  Willis. 
He  disliked  to  be  called  Nathaniel ;  respecting 
which  prejudice,  his  wife  and  brothers  and  sis 
ters,  as  well  as  his  intimate  friends,  were  accus 
tomed  to  address  him  simply  as  Willis.  "  Truly 
one's  sponsors,"  said  he,  "  have  much  to  answer 
for."  In  Lowell's  smart  pasquinade,  "  A  Fable 
for  Critics,"  published  in  1848,  which  contains 
not  only  headlong  fun,  but  good  poetry  and  just 
criticism,  there  is  a  passage  on  Willis,  from 
which  I  venture  to  quote  a  few  lines,  —  in  spite 
of  its  familiarity  to  many  readers,  —  because  its 

i  Cambridge,  January  13,  1844. 


302  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

spirit  is  kindly  and  it  is  one  of  the  best  estimates 
of  Willis  ever  written  :  — 

"There's  Willis  so  natty  and  jaunty  and  gay, 
Who  says  his  best  things  in  so  foppish  a  way, 
With  conceits  and  pet  phrases  so  thickly  o'erlaying  'em, 
That  one  hardly  knows  whether  to  thank  him  for  saying 

'em.  ..." 

His  prose  had  a  natural  grace  of  its  own, 
And  enough  of  it,  too,  if  he  'd  let  it  alone, 
But  he  twitches  and  jerks  so  one  fairly  gets  tired, 
And  is  forced  to  forgive  where  he  might  have  admired. 
Yet  whenever  it  slips  away  free  and  unlaced 
It  runs  like  a  stream  with  a  musical  waste, 
And  gurgles  along  with  the  liquidest  sweep. 
JT  is  not  deep  as  a  river,  but  who  'd  have  it  deep?  .  .  . 
No  volume  I  know  to  read  under  a  tree 
More  truly  delicious  than  his  A  1'Abri, 
With  the  shadows  of  leaves  flowing  over  your  book, 
Like  ripple-shades  netting  the  bed  of  a  brook ; 
With  June  coming  softly  your  shoulder  to  look  over, 
Breezes  waiting  to  turn  every  leaf  of  your  book  over, 
And  Nature  to  criticise  still  as  you  read  — 
The  page  that  bears  that  is  a  rare  one  indeed.  .  .  . 
His- nature  's  a  glass  of  champagne  with  the  foam  on  't, 
As  tender  as  Fletcher,  as  witty  as  Beaumont ; 
So  his  best  things  are  done  in  the  flush  of  the  moment : 
If  he  wait,  all  is  spoiled  :  he  may  stir  it  and  shake  it, 
But,  the  fixed  air  once  gone,  he  can  never  remake  it.  ... 
He  'd  have  been  just  the  fellow  to  sup  at  the  Mermaid, 
Cracking  jokes  at  rare  Ben,  with  an  eye  to  the  bar-maid, 
His  wit  running  up  as  canary  ran  down,  — 
The  topmost  bright  bubble  on  the  wave  of  The  Town." 

One  proof  of  popularity  is  parody.  Until  a 
statesman's  face  is  so  familiar  to  the  public  that 
its  caricature  in  the  comic  papers  needs  no 


THE  HOME  JOURNAL.  303 

label,  and  until  an  author's  style  is  so  easily 
recognized  that  a  travesty  of  it  hits  the  sense 
of  the  reader,  neither  statesman  nor  author  may 
consider  himself  as  really  popular.  "  Excel 
sior,"  and  "  The  Raven,"  and  "  Abou  ben  Ad- 
hem  "  are  by  no  means  the  best  poems  in  the 
English  tongue,  but  their  currency  is  attested 
and  doubtless  kept  up  by  the  innumerable  bur 
lesque  imitations  of  them  that  swarm  the  press. 
Willis  had  a  share  of  these  left-hand  honors: 
his  epistolary  style  in  particular  was  often  carica 
tured  in  the  newspapers.  In  "  Godey's  Lady's 
Book  "  for  December,  1849,  he  was  selected  to 
gether  with  Poe,  Morris,  Whittier,  and  John 
Neal  for  humorous  imitation. 

"  My  dear  Sir  :  "  he  is  made  to  write  in  response 
to  an  imaginary  request  for  a  contribution,  "  to  be 
obliged  to  penetrate  with  the  pump-buckets  of  neces 
sity,  prompted  by  the  piston  of  a  fifty-dollar  com 
pensation,  with  a  publisher  as  the  pump-handle,  hi 
search  of  a  poem,  is,  of  itself,  annoying  enough.  To 
draw  one  up  with  the  rope  and  bucket  of  gratuity, 
is  a  labor  which  qualifies  one  for  a  long  residence  in 
fatiguedom.  Your  letter  found  me  fagging  away 
over  my  work-desk  —  chasing  a  brilliant  idea  in  and 
out  of  the  myriads  of  convolutions  of  my  brain. 
Ah1  the  while  that  I  was  aping  Prometheus  (the  win 
dow  being  half-opened),  I  could  sniff  the  delightful 
odors  of  a  rose  which  a  fair  neighbor  will  insist  on 
keeping,"  etc.,  etc. 


304  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

The  requested  poem  is  annexed  —  a  scriptural 
poem,  "  The  Fish  woman's  Son  :  "  — 

"  Night  on  the  market.     Through  the  colonnade 
Of  red-brick  pillars  not  a  sound  was  heard, 
Save  of  some  whistling  urchin  as  he  strode 
With  stamping  footfalls,  listening  to  the  noise 
Which  wore  his  shoe-soles  and  the  hearer's  patience ; 
Or  the  low  mutter  of  the  drunken  man, 
As  his  wild  song,  proclaiming  fix'd  resolve 
Not  to  go  home  till  morning,  sank  to  low 
And  nearly  inarticulate  murmurs." 

The   fishwoman's  son  sings  a  song,  whose  first 
stanza  runs :  — 

"  I  will  not  go, 

Like  a  whipt  dog,  unto  the  public  school, 
To  wear  the  cap  and  tokens  of  a  fool, 

While  Mexico 

Invites  me  on  to  glory  and  to  fame,  — 
Or  a  cracked  crown,  which  after  all 's  the  same." 

Willis  was  forty  when  the  "  Home  Journal " 
was  begun  —  an  age  at  which  writers  who  have 
thought  and  studied  deeply  are  often  no  more 
than  ripe,  and  have  their  most  productive  years 
before  them.  But  his  best  work  was  already 
done.  After  1846  he  wrote  hardly  any  more 
stories  or  poems  —  none  at  all  of  any  value. 
His  pen  was  devoted  more  and  more  steadily  to 
editorial  duties,  to  ephemera  and  paragraphs 
and  fragments  of  all  kinds,  and  his  well-wishers 
lamented  that  wit  and  fancy  which,  if  properly 
directed,  might  have  produced  something  that 


THE  HOME  JOURNAL.  305 

would  live  and  delight  future  generations,  were 
wasted  in  dissertations  upon  the  cut  of  a  beard 
or  the  fashion  of  a  coat.  To  all  remonstrances  of 
his  friends  over  his  literary  trifling  and  their 
exhortations  to  write  for  posterity,  his  invariable 
answer,  in  and  out  of  print,  was  that  the  public 
liked  trifles,  and  that  posterity  would  not  pay  his 
bills  —  that  he  must  go  on  "  buttering  curiosity 
with  the  ooze  of  his  brains."  That  this  answer 
satisfied  himself,  or  that  he  was  without  those 
aspirations  after  a  more  enduring  fame  which 
are  natural  to  all,  cannot  be  believed.  It  is 
probable  that  he  sadly  acknowledged  in  his  in 
ner  consciousness  that  the  best  part  of  his  ca 
reer  was  over.  His  talent,  as  has  been  said 
before,  was  the  result  of,  or  was  closely  de 
pendent  upon,  his  physical  temperament.  When 
health  began  to  decay,  and  youth  was  over,  and 
his  animal  spirits  had  effervesced,  life  com 
menced  to  have  a  flat  taste.  The  bloom  was  off. 
His  writing,  too,  as  we  have  seen,  was  always 
closely  related  to  his  personal  experiences ;  and 
as  these  grew  tamer,  he  had  less  and  less  to 
report,  and  his  writing  grew  tame  in  proportion. 
With  some,  mere  study  and  contemplation  sup 
ply,  to  a  degree,  the  ravages  which  time  makes 
upon  the  freshness  of  young  impressions.  But 
it  had  been  Willis's  misfortune  in  youth  that  a 
premature  success  had  deprived  him  of  the  dis- 

20 


306  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

cipline  of  early  rebuffs,  and  had  made  a  pain 
ful  self-culture  needless.  He  never  drew  much 
inspiration  from  books,  and  in  later  life  he  read 
very  little.  He  said  that  he  could  not  afford 
to  read,  partly  for  want  of  time,  partly  from  a 
notion  that  much  reading  would  be  fatal  to 
originality.  Neither  was  it  his  privilege  to  com 
mand,  at  this  or  at  any  time,  the  stimulating 
and  bracing  association  with  men  of  high  se 
rious  intellects  and  strenuous  aims,  such  as  he 
might,  perhaps,  have  had  if  he  had  remained  in 
Boston.  The  occasional  hasty  meetings  with 
men  of  brains  and  literary  tastes  in  general  so 
ciety  did  not  at  all  take  the  place  of  that  inti 
mate  communion  with  a  circle  of  gifted  spirits 
which  has  been  so  stimulating  to  others.  More 
over  it  should  be  borne  in  mind,  as  accounting 
largely  for  the  mediocrity  of  his  later  work, 
that  for  the  last  fifteen  years  of  his  life  Willis 
was  a  chronic  invalid.  Indeed,  he  was  never 
really  a  well  man  after  his  illness  of  1845. 

Next  to  Cooper,  Willis  was  the  best  abused 
man  of  letters  in  America.  It  is  easy  to  under 
stand  how  the  former,  who  was  pugnacious  and 
struck  hard,  should  have  been  always  in  hot 
water.  But  why  a  man  of  Willis's  urbanity 
should  have  been  a  target  for  the  newspaper 
critics  is  more  difficult  of  explanation.  "  Colo 
nel  "  William  L.  Stone  of  the  "  Commercial 


THE  HOME  JOURNAL.  307 

Advertiser,"  and  "  Colonel  "  James  Watson 
Webb  of  the  "Courier  and  Enquirer,"  distin 
guished  themselves  especially  by  their  stern  con 
demnation  of  Willis's  literary  affectations,  and 
of  what  they  were  pleased  to  consider  the  weak 
nesses  of  his  private  character  and  life.  It  is 
suggestive,  by  the  way,  of  the  militant  disposi 
tion  of  the  New  York  press  at  that  time,  that  so 
many  editors  were  generals  and  colonels  —  or 
at  least  were  breveted  such  by  public  consent, 
and  graced  with  titular  embellishments  of  a 
warlike  character.  Henry  J.  Raymond,  who 
joined  the  "  Courier  and  Enquirer "  in  1842, 
proved  his  zealous  adhesion  to  the  traditions  of 
the  paper  by  an  onslaught  upon  Willis,  in  which 
he  asserted  that  the  latter  had  snobbishly  rep 
resented  himself  as  received  in  the  best  circles 
abroad,  "when  in  truth 't  was  no  such  matter." 
Willis  replied  to  this  in  an  editorial  which  Poe 
mentions  as  a  clever  specimen  of  skill  at  fence. 
An  effort  was  afterwards  made  by  friends  of  both 
to  bring  them  together,  at  a  time  when  Willis 
was  living  at  Idlewild  and  Raymond  was  visit 
ing  in  the  neighborhood.  The  plan  miscarried 
for  some  reason  or  other,  though  Willis,  who 
seldom  cherished  a  resentment,  was  quite  ready 
for  a  reconciliation. 

In  1850  Willis  became  unpleasantly  involved 
in  the  famous  divorce  suit  between  Edwin  For- 


308  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

rest  and  his  wife.  He  had  known  Forrest  as 
early  as  1836,  admired  his  acting,  and  praised  it 
constantly  in  the  "  Mirror  "  and  "  Home  Jour 
nal,"  preferring  it  to  the  more  studied  perform 
ances  of  his  English  rival,  Macready.  He  had 
seen  little  of  Forrest  for  a  number  of  years ;  but 
after  his  return  to  New  York,  in  1846,  the 
two  families  grew  quite  intimate,  exchanging 
visits  and  dinners.  Mrs.  Willis  and  Mrs.  For 
rest  especially  became  fast  friends,  and  on  one 
occasion,  when  the  former  was  seriously  ill,  she 
sent  for  Mrs.  Forrest  to  come  and  stay  with  her. 
Mrs.  Forrest  was  the  daughter  of  Sinclair,  the 
great  English  singer.  She  was  a  lady  of  re 
finement,  beauty,  and  social  accomplishments. 
Her  sister  Mrs.  Voorhies,  who  lived  with  her 
for  a  time,  had  inherited  her  father's  musical 
talents,  and  Mrs.  Forrest  soon  got  about  her  a 
pleasant  circle  of  friends,  which  included  many 
persons  of  literary  and  artistic  tastes,  editors, 
authors,  professors,  clergymen,  and  their  wives. 
The  Bryants,  the  Godwins,  Dr.  Dewey,  Henry 
Wikoff,  and  Samuel  Raymond,  the  actor,  were 
among  the  frequenters  of  the  house.  When 
Richard  Willis  returned  from  his  musical  studies 
in  Germany  in  1848,  his  brother  introduced 
him  there,  and  he  found  so  much  enthusiasm  for 
his  art,  that  he  called  repeatedly,  to  practice  his 
compositions  with  Mrs.  Voorhies. 


THE  HOME  JOURNAL.  309 

Edwin  Forrest  was  a  tragedian  of  great  nat 
ural  force  and  genius,  endowed  with  a  wonder 
ful  voice  and  a  magnificent  physique.  But  he 
was  a  man  of  passionate  and  overbearing  tem 
per  ;  his  education  was  defective,  his  language 
and  manners  sometimes  offensively  coarse,  and 
he  had  little  relish  for  intellectual  society.  He 
does  not  appear,  however,  to  have  felt  any  ob 
jection  to  his  wife's  hospitalities,  or  to  have  sus 
pected  any  impropriety  in  her  receiving  her 
friends,  during  his  frequent  absences  from  home 
on  professional  engagements,  until  long  after 
other  causes  of  estrangement  had  arisen  between 
them.  At  Cincinnati,  in  the  spring  of  1848,  he 
thought  that  he  had  discovered  evidence  of  a 
guilty  intimacy  between  Mrs.  Forrest  and  an  ac 
tor  named  Jamieson  ;  and  although  she  solemnly 
protested  her  innocence  and  her  husband  agreed 
to  accept  her  oath,  his  jealousy  smouldered  and 
occasionally  broke  out  in  scenes  of  violence.  At 
length,  in  April,  1849,  they  agreed  to  separate. 
Mrs.  Forrest  made  her  home  for  a  time  with 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Parke  Godwin,  and  Forrest  took 
up  his  residence  in  Philadelphia,  where  in  Feb 
ruary,  1850,  he  made  an  application  for  divorce 
to  the  Pennsylvania  legislature,  based  upon  affi 
davits,  charging  his  wife  with  adultery.  This 
application  was  ultimately  denied,  but  mean- 
while  the  lady's  friends  in  New  York  had  taken 


310  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS, 

the  matter  up.  She  had  the  sympathy  and 
moral  support  of  such  men  as  William  C.  Bry 
ant  and  his  son-in-law,  Mr.  Parke  Godwin,  and 
Dr.  Orville  Dewey,  the  eminent  Unitarian  di 
vine.  Up  to  this  time  Forrest  had  not  impli 
cated  Willis  in  his  charges,  but  hearing  that  he 
was  among  those  who  were  taking  sides  with 
Mrs.  Forrest,  he  had  stopped  him  in  the  street 
one  day  in  January,  1850,  and  warned  him 
against  intermeddling  between  him  and  his  wife, 
denouncing  her  unfaithfulness  in  the  strongest 
terms.  Willis  replied  that  he  did  not  believe 
a  word  of  the  slanders  against  her.  The  next 
day  Mrs.  Willis  received  an  anonymous  letter, 
accusing  her  husband  of  criminal  relations  with 
Mrs.  Forrest.  On  March  28th  the  "Herald" 
published  extracts  from  the  evidence  on  which 
Forrest  had  based  his  application  to  the  Penn 
sylvania  legislature,  which  compromised,  among 
others,  Mr.  Richard  Willis.  This  drew  from 
his  brother  a  letter  of  explanation,  printed  in  the 
"  Herald  "  of  the  following  day. 

"  It  was  not  my  intention,"  wrote  Willis,  "  to  say 
a  word  in  this  letter  upon  the  merits  of  the  case  to 
which  this  evidence  belongs.  To  rescue  the  good 
name  of  an  absent  brother,  who,  in  moral  conduct  is 
irreproachably  correct,  was  my  only  object.  A  court 
of  justice  will  soon  sift  the  testimony,  and  better  in 
form  the  public  as  to  its  credibility  on  other  points. 


THE  HOME  JOURNAL.  311 

But  the  mention  of  my  wife's  name,  as  a  friend  and 
visitor  of  Mrs.  Forrest,  makes  it  incumbent  on  me  to 
add  that  the  description  of  Mrs.  Forrest's  manners 
and  style  of  hospitality  which  is  given  in  that  evi 
dence  is  totally  at  variance  with  all  we  have  ever 
seen  and  known  of  that  dignified,  well-bred,  and 
delicate  mannered  lady." 

And  in  the  4<  Home  Journal "  for  April  6th 
he  published  a  severe  review  of  the  "  Forrest 
testimony,"  warmly  defending  Mrs.  Forrest,  ex 
pressing  the  belief  that  her  husband's  chief 
motive  in  the  late  proceedings  had  been  to  rid 
himself  of  the  expense  of  her  support ;  that  the 
real  cause  of  their  separation  had  been  his 
jealousy  of  her  intellectual  superiority ;  and  con 
demning  indignantly  his  attempt  to  "  enlist 
kitchen  and  brothel  against  her,  and  so  sully  her 
fair  name  by  cheap  and  easy  falsehood  that  he 
can  throw  her  off  like  a  mistress  paid  up  to 
parting."  The  article  concluded  as  follows :  — 

"We  have  written  the  above  under  the  editorial 
plural,  but  the  facts  being  mostly  of  personal  knowl 
edge,  and  wishing  to  evade  no  manner  of  responsi 
bility,  we  close  with  the  writer's  individual  signature, 

"  N.  P.  WILLIS." 

These  two  articles,  coupled  with  testimony 
elicited  from  Forrest's  household  servants,  de 
cided  him  to  drag  Willis  into  the  case.  His 
bill  filed  in  Philadelphia  contained  the  names  of 


312  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

nine  co-respondents,  among  them  a  clergyman, 
Mrs.  Forrest's  family  doctor,  and  Forrest's  old 
friend  and  traveling  companion,  Chevalier  Wi- 
koff.  The  last  three  were  afterwards  dropped 
from  the  case.  Mrs.  Forrest,  having  been  served 
with  a  copy  of  the  application  and  the  process 
issued  by  the  Pennsylvania  legislature,  filed  a 
bill  in  the  New  York  Supreme  Court  in  Septem 
ber,  1850,  and  obtained  an  injunction  to  restrain 
her  husband  from  proceeding  with  his  suit  in 
Philadelphia.  She  then  began  suit  against  him 
in  New  York  for  a  divorce  on  the  ground  of 
adultery,  which  he  defended  with  cross-accusa 
tions  ;  and  in  New  York  the  case  was  finally 
tried  and  decided.  Meanwhile  Forrest  was 
prowling  about  his  wife's  lodgings  in  New  York, 
threatening  people  who  went  in  or  out,  and 
stopping  others  in  the  street  to  warn  them 
against  interference. 

On  the  17th  of  June,  while  Willis  was  walk 
ing  in  Washington  Square,  near  his  own  resi 
dence  in  Fourth  Street,  Forrest  came  up  to  him 
quickly  and  knocked  him  down  with  a  blow  from 
his  fist.  He  then  stood  over  him,  and,  holding 
him  down  by  the  coat  collar  with  one  hand,  beat 
him  with  a  gutta-percha  whip  till  the  police  came 
up  and  interfered.  To  the  group  of  spectators 
which  had  rapidly  assembled,  he  said,  "  That  is 
the  seducer  of  my  wife."  Willis  would  at  no 


THE  HOME  JOURNAL.  313 

time  have  been  physically  the  equal  of  his  antag 
onist,  who  was  a  man  of  powerful  frame ;  but 
when  this  assault  was  made  it  was  doubly  safe 
from  the  fact  that  the  victim  of  it  had  been  ill  for 
months  with  a  rheumatic  fever,  and  was  in  an 
unusually  feeble  condition  of  body.  Two  days 
after  this  heroic  action,  Forrest  met  Bryant  and 
Godwin  walking  down  Broadway  and  furiously 
demanded  who  had  put  the  account  of  it  into  the 
"  Evening  Post,"  in  which  he  was  represented  as 
having  struck  Willis  from  behind. 

"  I  told  him,"  said  Mr.  Godwin,  in  his  testimony, 
"  I  was  responsible  for  the  article.  He  then  turned 
round  to  me  in  a  very  ferocious  way,  and  said  there 
were  several  things  that  he  was  going  to  hold  me  re 
sponsible  for ;  he  said  the  article  was  a  damned  lie 
from  beginning  to  end  ;  he  said  he  meant  to  attack 
Mr.  Willis,  and  he  believed  that  he  had  told  me  so 
formerly.  I  replied  that  these  were  not  just  the  terms 
that  he  used,  and  that  he  told  me  formerly  that  he 
meant  to  cut  his  damned  heart  out ;  to  which  Mr. 
Forrest  muttered  something  in  reply  —  I  don't  know 
what  it  was  distinctly  ;  I  think  he  said  something 
about  what  he  would  have  done  if  they  had  not  taken 
him  off." 

Willis  brought  an  action  against  Forrest  for 
this  assault,  in  the  superior  court  of  the  city  of 
New  York,  and  secured  a  verdict  in  March, 
1852,  for  $2,500  and  costs.  The  case  was  ap- 


314  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

pealed  on  exceptions,  and,  upon  the  new  trial 
which  was  ordered,  the  damages  were  reduced  to 
one  dollar.  Forrest  sued  Willis  for  libel  in 
the  "  Home  Journal "  article,  and  got  $500  dam 
ages.  But  in  the  mean  time  the  suit  for  di 
vorce  had  come  to  trial,  in  December,  1851, 
and  had  been  decided  in  Mrs.  Forrest's  favor. 
The  jury  found  the  defendant  guilty  of  adultery, 
found  the  plaintiff  innocent,  and  granted  her  the 
decree  prayed  for  with  $ 3,000  a  year  alimony. 
This  was  one  of  the  causes  celebres  of  the  last 
generation.  The  trial  occupied  the  then  extraor 
dinarily  long  period  of  six  weeks,  and  the  printed 
testimony  fills  two  large  volumes.  Charles 
O'Conor,  who  was  Mrs.  Forrest's  counsel,  dated 
his  great  reputation  as  an  advocate  from  his 
conduct  of  this  case.  For  eighteen  years  he 
fought  the  battle  for  his  fair  client  relentlessly 
and  triumphantly.  The  case  was  appealed  five 
times,  and  judgment  affirmed  every  time  with 
an  increase  of  alimony.  It  was  not  till  1868 
that  the  defendant  tired  of  resistance,  and  paid 
over  to  the  plaintiff  the  sum  of  $64,000.  His 
costs  and  expenses  of  litigation,  additional  to 
this,  were  of  course  enormous.  It  is  unneces 
sary  to  review  the  evidence  given  at  the  trial,  by 
which  it  was  sought  to  incriminate  Willis  in  this 
affair,  further  than  to  say  that  it  consisted  al 
most  solely  of  the  testimony  of  servants,  who 


THE  HOME  JOURNAL.  315 

were  thoroughly  discredited  in  their  cross-exami 
nation.  One  of  these  witnesses  was  a  man  who 
had  been  discharged  from  Willis's  employ.  An 
other  was  an  ex-chambermaid  in  the  Forrest 
household,  who  was  brought  all  the  way  from 
Texas  to  testify,  and  who  was  shown  to  be  a 
thief,  and  the  mother  of  an  illegitimate  child  by 
a  friend  of  the  defendant.  Public  opinion,  it  is 
needless  to  say,  was  divided  about  the  verdict. 
Forrest  was  the  idol  of  the  Bowery,  and  the  as- 
serter  of  the  American  stage  against  the  "  dudes  " 
and  "  Anglo-maniacs  "  of  that  day.  "  The  boys," 
who  had  stuck  by  him  in  his  quarrel  with  Ma- 
cready  till  its  upshot  in  the  bloody  Astor  Place 
riot  of  May  10,  1849,  stuck  by  him  now  in  his 
domestic  tribulations,  and  gave  him  a- rousing 
ovation  on  his  first  appearance  at  the  Broad 
way  Theatre,  following  the  close  of  the  trial. 
A  number  of  people  in  society,  too,  of  those 
who  "  demen  gladly  to  the  badder  end,"  made 
up  their  minds  to  Mrs.  Forrest's  guilt.  But  it 
is  not  unfair  to  say  that  the  great  majority  of 
the  decent  people  and  respectable  newspapers 
greeted  the  verdict  with  acclamation.  A  large 
party  maintained  that  Forrest  was  a  selfish  and 
licentious  brute,  who  was  tired  of  his  wife  and 
wanted  to  be  rid  of  her ;  that,  knowing  he  had 
no  valid  cause  of  action  against  her,  he  trumped 
up  charges  and  suborned  witnesses.  It  is  not 


316  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

necessary  to  go  so  far  as  this  in  order  to  as 
sert  the  innocence  of  Mrs.  Forrest  and  of  those 
who  were  made  parties  to  the  accusations  against 
her.  Alger,  in  his  big  "  Life  of  Edwin  For 
rest,"  after  acknowledging  that  "  the  innocence 
of  Mrs.  Forrest  is  publicly  accredited,  and  is 
not  here  impugned ; "  that  she  "  was  believed 
by  her  intimate  and  most  honored  friends  to  be 
innocent,  was  vindicated  by  a  jury  after  a  most 
searching  trial,  and  is  now  living  in  modest 
and  blameless  retirement,"  simply  urges  in  For 
rest's  behalf  that  he  honestly  believed  himself  a 
wronged  man,  and  acted  with  his  usual  fury  and 
unforgivingness  upon  that  conviction.  Willis 
and  his  brother  were  both  among  the  witnesses 
for  the  plaintiff  on  the  trial,  and  both,  of  course, 
denied  peremptorily  the  charges  against  them. 
But  the  one  circumstance  which  more  than  all 
else  influenced  the  decision  of  the  jury  was  the 
constant  presence  in  court  of  Mrs.  N.  P.  Willis, 
side  by  side  with  Mrs.  Forrest,  and  the  brave, 
clear,  and  simple  way  in  which  she  testified  in 
her  friend's  behalf.  No  one  could  believe  that  a 
spirited  and  refined  lady,  like  Mrs.  Willis,  would 
have  consented,  for  an  instant,  to  put  herself 
into  such  a  position,  without  a  full  assurance  of 
her  husband's  innocence ;  and  no  one  who  lis 
tened  to  her  testimony  could  have  thought  her  a 
woman  likely  to  be  deceived.  John  Van  Buren, 


THE  HOME  JOURNAL.  317 

who  was  Forrest's  lawyer  in  all  these  cases,  was 
quite  generally  censured  for  the  needlessly  abu 
sive  way  in  which  he  handled  the  witnesses  for 
the  other  side.  In  the  trial  of  the  assault  and 
battery  case,  "  Willis  v.  Forrest,"  his  personal 
ities  went  so  far  beyond  the  limits  usually  set  to 
the  licensed  insolence  of  the  bar,  that  on  the 
termination  of  the  suit  Willis,  who  was  about 
starting  on  a  trip  to  the  South,  and  had  learned 
from  an  item  in  the  "  Herald  "  that  Van  Buren 
was  going  South  too,  sent  him  a  letter  demand 
ing  an  apology.  In  case  he  should  decline  to 
make  such  apology,  the  letter  proposed  a  hostile 
meeting  at  Charleston  or  any  other  convenient 
point  in  the  Southern  States.  This  note  the  re 
cipient  returned  (after  carefully  making  a  copy 
of  it)  with  a  short  reply,  describing  it  as  a  "  silly 
and  scurrilous  communication."  This  it  cer 
tainly  was  not,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  a  very 
dignified  and  gentlemanly  letter ;  rather  too 
long,  it  must  be  owned,  for  on  these  occasions 
Willis's  pen  generally  ran  away  with  him. 
However,  on  the  receipt  of  this  answer  to  it, 
which  was  forwarded  to  him  at  the  South,  he  re 
plied  with  sufficient  brevity :  "  I  now  pronounce 
you  a  coward,  as  well  as  a  proper  companion  for 
the  blackguards  whose  attorneyship  constitutes 
your  career." 

This  challenge  was  something  of  a  nourish  on 


318  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

Willis's  part,  and  his  experience  with  Marryat 
might  have  taught  him  the  folly  of  such  attempts 
to  get  "the  satisfaction  of  a  gentleman"  from 
railing  editors  and  attorneys.  He  took  little  by 
his  motion,  which  simply  gave  Van  Buren  an 
opportunity  to  publish  the  correspondence  in  a 
New  York  morning  paper  with  comments  of  his 
own,  characteristically  ugly  and  characteristi 
cally  smart.  The  fact  remained,  however,  that 
Van  Buren  had  been  challenged  to  fight  and 
had  declined,  and  the  general  note  made  upon 
the  affair  by  a  venal  press  was  to  the  effect  that 
"  Prince  John  had  shown  the  white  feather." 
Of  the  many  letters  of  sympathy  and  congratu 
lation  received  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Willis  after 
the  Forrest  verdict,  the  following,  from  Mr.  J. 
P.  Kennedy,  the  author  of  "  Swallow  Barn," 
will  serve  as  an  example  :  — 

BALTIMORE,  February  2,  1852. 

MY  DEAR  WILLIS,  —  I  have  often  resolved  during 
the  war  —  the  late  war,  I  hope  I  may  call  it  —  to  as 
sume  the  privilege  of  a  friend  and  send  you  the  only 
succor  I  could  supply,  a  word  of  comfort  and  a  cheer 
or  two,  to  let  you  see  that  there  was  some  sympathy 
abroad  for  your  sufferings,  which  I  know  were  pun 
gent  enough  to  make  a  very  respectable  saint,  if  your 
ambition  lay  in  that  way.  Now  that  you  have  got 
through  certainly  the  worst  part  of  your  Iliad  in  the 
termination  of  that  horrible  trial,  I  think  it  a  good 


THE  HOME  JOURNAL.  319 

time  to  redeem  my  promise  to  myself,  and  to  say  to 
you  that  I  have  felt  a  friend's  part  in  the  whole  prog 
ress  of  your  troubles,  and  the  confidence  of  a  friend 
that  the  end  would  bring  you  a  bright  sky  and  a 
pleasant  outlook  for  the  future.  I  particularly  con 
gratulate  Mrs.  Willis  on  this  result,  as  I  know,  or 
can  imagine,  the  full  measure  of  her  griefs.  We  all 
here —  I  mean  our  household,  with  whom  Mrs.  Willis 
is  associated  in  so  many  affectionate  remembrances  — 
unite  very  sincerely  in  this  message  to  her.  Your 
defense  in  the  "  Home  Journal "  of  an  injured  woman, 
which  I  noted  and  applauded  from  the  first,  was,  at 
its  least,  a  manly  and  generous  act,  and  it  became  the 
more  worthy  of  your  manhood  as  it  grew  to  be  peril 
ous.  I  use  this  word  much  more  in  reference  to  the 
social  clamor  than  to  the  ruffian  assault  it  brought 
you.  I  trust  you  are  now  to  triumph  very  signally 
over  both.  Present  Mrs.  Kennedy  and  her  sister  very 
kindly  to  your  wife,  as  also  Dr.  Gray,  and  believe  me 
Very  truly  yours, 

J.  P.  KENNEDY. 

The  result  of  the  Forrest  trial  was,  in  a  sense, 
a  triumph  for  Willis.  Yet  in  all  affairs  of  the 
kind,  although  the  charges  are  disproved,  the 
very  fact  that  they  have  been  made  leaves,  il- 
logically  and  unfairly,  perhaps,  but  still  inevit 
ably,  a  sediment  of  prejudice  in  the  public  mind. 
It  is  in  the  nature  of  such  cases  tjiat  the  inmost 
truth  about  them  can  seldom  be/known  to  more 
than  two  persons.  To  all  others  there  remains 


320  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

nothing  beyond  inference  and  suspicion.  Hence 
the  uncertainty  which  survives  the  judicial  de 
cision  of  the  cause  and  works  injustice  to  the 
innocent  who  have  been  unlucky  enough  to  be 
drawn  into  compromising  situations.  An  im 
pression  has  always  obtained  in  many  quarters 
that  Willis  was  profligate  in  his  relations  with 
women.  Rumors  to  this  effect  were  industri 
ously  circulated  by  his  ill-wishers,  and,  in  one 
instance,  they  got  into  print  in  the  shape  of  an 
accusation  publicly  brought  against  him  by  his 
ancient  foe,  Colonel  James  Watson  Webb  of  the 
"  Courier  and  Enquirer."  It  is  needless  to  re 
vive  this  venerable  scandal  or  any  of  the  less 
tangible,  miscellaneous  gossip  once  afloat  on  the 
current  of  New  York  society.  It  is  no  part  of 
a  biographer's  duty  to  "  vindicate  "  his  subject 
from  any  and  all  charges  of  the  kind.  I  have 
read  the  published  documents  in  the  Webb- 
Willis  affair  with  a  sincere  effort  to  be  impar 
tial,  and  they  left  upon  my  mind  no  impression 
of  anything  worse  on  Willis's  part  than  vanity 
and  indiscretion  in  permitting  himself  to  be 
drawn  into  a  half  literary,  half  sentimental  cor- 
responcfonce  with  a  very  romantic  young  woman, 
without  her  parents'  knowledge.  He  was  easily 
flattered  by  attentions  from  female  worshipers 
of  genius.  He  maintained  in  print  and  in  per 
son  a  constant  attitude  of  gallantry  toward  the 


THE  HOME  JOURNAL.  321 

sex,  which  doubtless  stimulated  the  rumor  of  his 
immoralities,  and  led  the  reader  to  identify  him 
with  the  Lotharios  of  his  tales.  Moreover,  it 
is  not  to  be  denied  that  when  a  young  man  in 
Italy,  and  in  the  fast  set  of  his  London  acquaint 
ances,  he  was  exposed  to  temptations  which  he 
did  not  always  resist,  and  probably  had  his 
share  of  those  adventures  which  the  French  in 
dulgently  call  bonnes  fortunes,  but  less  liberal 
shepherds  of  Anglo-Saxon  race  give  a  grosser 
name;  and  which  always  turn  out  the  reverse 
of  good  fortunes  for  everybody  concerned.  As 
to  his  later  life,  one  who  knew  him  well  but  had 
quarreled  with  him  and  had  small  cause  to  like 
him,  writes  :  "  My  belief  is  that  N.  P.  Willis 
was,  as  he  said,  perfectly  free  from  fault  in  that 
business  [the  Forrest  affair],  and  had  no  in 
trigues  with  women  after  his  marriage." 

The  spring  of  1852  found  him  much  broken 
in  health.  He  had  a  wearing  cough,  and  it  was 
thought  that  his  lungs  were  diseased.  He  waited 
only  the  termination  of  his  assault  and  battery 
case  in  March,  to  start  on  a  journey  to  the  South 
with  his  father-in-law,  Mr.  Grinnell.  The  trip 
included  a  cruise  to  Bermuda  and  the  West 
Indies,  a  short  stay  in  Charleston,  Savannah, 
and  New  Orleans,  a  visit  to  the  Mammoth  Cave, 
and  a  sojourn  at  the  neighboring  watering-place 
of  Harrodsburg  Springs.  His  letters  to  the 

21 


322  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

"  Home  Journal "  from  these  and  other  points 
in  the  South  were  reissued  in  book  form  as  "  A 
Health  Trip  to  the  Tropics."  During  the  years 
covered  by  this  chapter  he  published  a  number 
of  volumes  similarly  made  up  of  periodical  cor 
respondence  and  miscellaneous  contributions  to 
his  paper.  "  Rural  Letters  "  contained  his  "  In 
valid  Letters  from  Germany;"  a  reprint  of  "Let 
ters  from  under  a  Bridge,"  with  two  additional 
to  those  in  the  earlier  editions ;  "  Open  Air 
Musings  in  the  City ; "  letters  from  Sharon 
Springs  and  Trenton  Falls  in  the  summer  of 
1848;  and  one  story,  "A  Plain  Man's  Love." 
"  Hurrygraphs  "  comprised  a  series  of  letters 
from  Plymouth,  New  Bedford,  Cape  Cod,  and 
places  on  the  Delaware  and  Hudson  rivers ;  be 
sides  sketches  —  often  very  acute  pieces  of  men 
tal  portraiture  —  of  public  men,  authors,  and 
other  celebrities,  and  a  good  deal  of  chit-chat 
about  society,  the  opera,  etc.,  from  the  columns 
of  the  "  Home  Journal." 

All  that  can  be  said  of  these  traveler's  letters 
is  that  they  are  fairly  good  reporting.  They 
hardly  attain  the  rank  of  literature,  and  were  as 
a  whole  not  worth  putting  between  covers.  But 
Willis  sold  well  and,  therefore,  found  his  account 
in  continued  book-making,  bringing  out,  usu 
ally,  simultaneous  editions  in  London  and  New 
York.  It  is  instructive  to  compare  his  letters 


THE  HOME  JOURNAL.  323 

from  Cape  Cod  —  a  journey  on  which  Mr.  Grin- 
nell  was  again  his  companion  —  with  Thoreau's 
book  on  the  same  piece  of  geography.  Both 
men  had  quick  eyes,  and  had  taught  themselves 
the  art  of  observation.  But  Willis's  letters  were 
the  notes  of  an  "  amateur  casual,"  or  "  here-and- 
thereian,"  on  a  flying  trip  over  a  sand-spit  inhab 
ited  by  queer  people,  who  was  always  on  the 
lookout  for  points  which  would  interest  the  lady 
readers  of  a  metropolitan  journal.  Thoreau,  on 
the  contrary,  was  like  a  palmer  on  a  solemn  pil 
grimage  to  one  of  nature's  peculiar  shrines,  with 
loins  girt  up  and  staff  in  hand,  tramping  along 
the  heavy  sands,  with  the  eternal  thunder  of 
"  The  Reverend  Poluphloisboio  Thalasses  "  in 
his  ear ;  in  serious  and  vigilant  mood,  watching 
every  least  token  of  the  ways  of  the  sea,  but 
careless  of  men  and  reading  publics. 

Now  and  then  there  is  a  quaint  or  poetic 
fancy  in  these  itineraries  of  Willis  which  recalls 
his  youthful  manner  ;  as  where,  speaking  of  the 
absence  of  an  atmosphere  in  the  tropic  seas,  he 
says  :  "  As  to  the  horizon,  it  seems  so  near  that, 
if  you  were  washing  your  hands  on  deck,  you 
might  try  to  throw  the  slops  over  it,  as  you 
would  over  the  ship's  side.  The  sun  goes  down, 
as  it  were,  next  door."  In  the  letters  from  Tren 
ton  Falls  —  which  he  had  visited  twenty  years 
before  and  described  in  "  Edith  Linsey  "  —  oc- 


324  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

curs  a  startling  anticipation  of  the  most  admired 
figure  in  Tennyson's  "  Queen  Mary :  "  — 

"  As  we  stood  gazing  at  this,  last  night,  a  little  af 
ter  midnight,  the  moon  threw  the  shadow  of  the  rock 
slantwise  across  the  face  of  the  fall.  I  found  myself 
insensibly  watching  to  see  whether  the  delicate  out 
line  of  the  shadow  would  not  vary.  There  it  lay,  still 
as  the  shade  of  a  church  window  across  a  marble  slab 
on  the  wall,  drawing  its  fine  line  over  the  most  fren 
zied  tumult  of  the  lashed  and  agonized  waters,  and 
dividing  whatever  leapt  across  it,  foam,  spray,  or  driv 
ing  mist,  with  invariable  truthfulness  to  the  rock  that 
lay  behind.  Now,  my  song-maker,  if  you  ever  have 
a  great  man  to  make  famous  —  a  hero  who  unflinch 
ingly  represents  a  great  principle  amid  the  raging  op 
position,  hatred,  and  malice  of  mankind  —  there  is 
your  similitude  :  Calm  as  the  shadow  of  a  rock  across 
the  foam  of  a  cataract" 

Willis  was  induced  by  Mr.  Moore,  the  pro 
prietor  and  landlord,  to  edit  a  small  illustrated 
guide-book  to  Trenton  Falls  ;  his  own  contribu 
tions  to  which  consisted  of  descriptions  repro 
duced  from  these  letters  and  from  "  Edith  Lin- 
sey,"  and  a  short  biography  of  the  Rev.  John 
Sherman,  the  first  settler  and  a  grandson  of 
Roger  Sherman.  In  the  same  way  and  in  the 
same  year  (1851)  he  put  together  a  little  "  Life 
of  Jenny  Lind,"  for  whom  he  had  an  ardent  admi 
ration,  and  whom  he  had  been  privileged  to  meet 


THE  HOME  JOURNAL.  325 

often  and  familiarly  during  her  first  visit  to 
America.  This  was,  of  course,  not  a  formal  bi 
ography,  but  was  made  up  from  articles  that  he 
had  written  about  her  from  time  to  time  for  the 
"  Home  Journal,"  and  extracts  from  the  English 
papers.  He  also  issued  selections  from  his  for 
mer  volumes  under  new  names.  Such  were 
"People  I  have  Met,"  and  "Life  Here  and 
There,"  which  were  stories  from  "  Dashes  at 
Life,"  and  contained  little  or  nothing  new,  and 
"  A  Summer  Cruise  in  the  Mediterranean," 
which  was  a  mere  reprint  of  a  part  of  "  Pencil- 
lings  by  the  Way." 


CHAPTEE  VIII. 

1853-1867. 

IDLEWILD    AND   LAST   DAYS. 

MR.  and  Mrs.  Willis,  with  their  children,  had 
passed  the  summer  of  1850  at  Cornwall,  in  the 
highlands  of  the  Hudson,  boarding  at  the  farm 
house  of  a  Mrs.  Sutherland.  They  grew  so  at 
tached  to  the  beautiful  neighborhood  that  they 
resolved  to  make  it  their  home  some  day,  and 
with  this  in  view,  in  the  fall  of  the  same  year, 
they  had  bought  the  fifty  acres  of  land  which 
afterwards  became  widely  known  as  Idlewild. 
This  little  domain  lay  upon  a  shelf  or  terrace  on 
the  western  bank  of  the  Hudson,  lifted  some 
two  hundred  feet  above  the  level  of  the  river, 
at  the  point  where  its  waters  received  the  slen 
der  tribute  of  Moodna  Creek.  Behind  the  site 
chosen  for  the  house  was  a  wild  ravine,  shaded 
by  hemlocks,  at  the  bottom  of  which  a  brook, 
swollen  to  sizable  rapids  and  cascades  by  the 
spring  freshets,  but  a  mere  trickle  in  midsum 
mer,  ran  down  to  join  the  creek.  The  location 
seemed  destined  by  nature  for  a  gentleman's 


IDLE  WILD  AND   LAST  DAYS.  327 

country  seat,  from  its  variety  of  surface,  its  con 
trasting  prospects,  and  its  noble  timber.  The 
outlook  in  front  was  upon  a  wide  bend  of  the 
river  and  the  opposite  heights  and  distant  moun 
tain  perspectives  of  the  eastern  shore.  Behind 
the  house  was  a  private  landscape  of  glen  and 
forest,  sunk  away  quite  out  of  sight  of  the  sails 
and  steamers  that  passed  continually  up  and 
down  the  watery  highway  before  the  front  door. 
To  the  south,  a  mile  away,  was  the  imposing 
shape  of  Storm  King,  a  mountain  which  owes 
its  baptism  to  Willis,  having  previously  figured 
in  geography  as  Butter  Hill.  Four  miles  below 
this  were  West  Point  and  the  gate  of  the  high 
lands,  and  on  the  other  bank  General  Morris's 
summer  home  of  Undercliff.  Four  miles  above 
Idlewild  was  the  considerable  town  of  Newburg, 
for  a  market ;  and  only  a  mile  from  his  door, 
the  post  office  village  of  Moodna. 

Willis's  trip  to  the  tropics  had  been  of  small 
benefit  to  his  health,  and,  on  his  return  in  the 
summer  of  1852,  he  joined  his  family  at  their 
boarding  place  at  Cornwall.  His  doctor  warned 
him  that  a  return  to  New  York  would  be  at  the 
risk  of  his  life.  He  had  grown  tired,  himself, 
of  the  city  and  of  gay  society,  and  longed  for 
the  repose  of  the  hills.  Levavit  oculos  ad  arces. 
In  the  hope  that  rural  quiet  and  the  drier  air  of 
the  highlands  might  restore  his  health,  he  de- 


328  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

cided  that  autumn  to  begin  building  at  once,  and 
to  take  up  his  permanent  abode  in  the  country. 
During  the  winter  and  spring  he  remained  with 
his  family  at  the  Sutherlands',  and  busied  him 
self  in  superintending  the  erection  of  his  house, 
laying  out  roads  and  paths,  cutting  vistas  through 
his  trees,  building  stone  walls,  constructing  a 
dam  for  his  brook,  and  reporting  progress  in 
gossipy  letters  to  the  "  Home  Journal."  In  the 
spring  of  1853  the  New  York  house  was  sold, 
and  on  the  26th  of  July  Idlewild  received  its 
tenants. 

Willis  had  a  happy  knack  at  inventing  names, 
and  if  everything  that  he  wrote  should  become 
obsolete,  he  will  still  have  left  his  sign  manual 
on  the  American  landscape  and  the  English 
tongue.  "  Idlewild  "  was  an  apt  and  beautiful 
name,  and  like  Sunny  side,  the  place  became  and 
remains  one  of  the  historic  points  of  the  scenery 
of  the  Hudson.  The  story  that  Willis  tells  of 
the  origin  of  the  word  is  this  :  The  old  farmer 
and  fisherman  who  owned  the  land  —  uncle  of 
the  "  Ward  boys,"  of  aquatic  fame  —  was  show 
ing  him  over  the  property,  and  Willis,  inquiring 
the  price  of  this  particular  piece,  was  answered 
that  it  had  little  value,  being  "  an  idle  wild  of 
which  nothing  could  ever  be  made."  I  fancy 
that  this  little  anecdote  is  in  part  a  myth,  in 
vented  after  the  fact  to  give  the  name  a  history 


IDLE  WILD  AND  LAST  DAYS.  329 

and  a  justification.  Willis  was  particular,  not 
to  say  fussy,  in  such  matters,  and  the  title  finally 
chosen  was  obtained  by  a  process  of  elimination 
from  a  list  that  I  have  seen,  of  several  hundred 
"  pretty,  fond,  adoptions  Christendoms,"  such  as 
Everwild,  Mieux-ici,  Lodore,  Loudwater,  Idle- 
brook,  Wanderwild,  Up-the-brook,  Shadywild, 
Loiter  wild,  Demi  jour-brook,  etc. 

Thus  ten  years  after  the  break-up  of  his  home 
at  Glenmary,  he  had  again  pitched  his  pavilion 
—  this  time  for  good  —  by  green  pastures  and 
running  waters.  Henceforth  he  abjured  fash 
ionable  life  and  devoted  himself  to  the  domestic 
ities  ;  to  the  care  of  his  health  and  his  grounds, 
the  entertainment  of  his  guests,  and  the  prepara 
tion  of  his  weekly  letter  to  the  "  Home  Jour 
nal."  There  was  little  left  in  him  of  that  dan 
dyism  which  had  distressed  his  critics.  But  the 
old  coats  and  hats  which  he  loved  to  wear  were 
worn  with  a  certain  grace  peculiar  to  the  man. 
He  could  not  put  on  the  seediest  garment  with 
out  straightway  imparting  to  it  an  air  of  jaunti- 
ness.  He  was  fond  of  pets  and  was  a  most  play 
ful  and  affectionate  companion  to  his  children, 
the  number  of  whom  gradually  increased  to  five 
by  the  birth  of  a  third  daughter,  Edith,  on  Sep 
tember  28,  1853,  and  a  second  son,  Bailey,  on 
May  31,  1857.  All  of  these  survive,  but  his 
last  child,  a  daughter,  born  October  31,  1860, 
lived  only  a  few  minutes. 


330  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

From  early  spring  till  after  Christmas  the 
family  at  Idlewild  kept  open  house,  having  al 
most  always  company  staying  with  them,  and  in 
summer  constantly  receiving  transient  guests. 
The  place  had  become  celebrated  through  Wil 
lis's  descriptions  in  the  "Home  Journal."  Corn 
wall  was  growing  to  be  a  summer  resort,  and 
there  were  daily  visits  to  the  glen  and  to  the 
house  from  all  manner  of  people.  Willis's 
habit  was  to  breakfast  in  his  own  room  and 
write  till  noon.  Sometimes  he  would  take  a 
stroll  to  the  post  office  or  the  glen  before  dinner. 
After  dinner  he  would  write  letters  or  do  "  scis 
sors  work  "  before  the  afternoon  drive  or  ride. 
The  evening  was  spent  with  his  guests,  or,  if  the 
family  were  alone,  he  would  write  again  and 
come  down  to  a  nine  o'clock  supper. 

From  the  trivial  incidents  of  this  daily  life  he 
wove  his  correspondence ;  enough  of  it,  at  last, 
to  fill  two  volumes,  "  Out  Doors  at  Idlewild  " 
and  "  The  Convalescent ;  "  the  former  dedicated 
to  Mr.  Grinnell,  the  latter  to  Doctors  William 
Beattie  and  John  F.  Gray,  his  physicians,  and 
both  books  addressed  more  particularly  to  the 
author's  "  parish  of  invalids."  These  letters 
have  by  no  means  the  literary  merit  of  the  "  Let 
ters  from  under  a  Bridge,"  and  it  was,  perhaps, 
presuming  too  far  on  their  claim  to  even  con 
temporary  respect  to  bind  them  up  at  all  after 


IDLE  WILD  AND  LAST  DAYS.  331 

they  had  once  done  duty  in  the  newspaper  col 
umn.  They  were  eagerly  read,  nevertheless,  as 
they  appeared  from  week  to  week,  and  a  sym 
pathetic  public  was  interested  in  Willis's  kindly 
prattle  about  his  landscape  gardening,  his  tree 
planting,  the  deluges  in  his  brook,  his  children, 
his  horses  and  dogs,  the  eccentricities  of  his 
country  neighbors,  the  humors  of  his  poultry, 
the  daily  voyage  of  the  family  wagon  to  New- 
burg,  the  sleighing  on  the  frozen  Hudson,  and 
the  occasional  picnics  and  excursions  to  Storm 
King,  West  Point,  Poughkeepsie,  or  remoter 
points.  Willis  found  himself  not  without  amuse 
ment,  becoming  something  of  a  country  gentle 
man  and  public-spirited  bulwark  of  society, 
taking  part  in  local  interests.  There  was  a  pic 
turesque  little  Episcopal  church  a  mile  from 
Idlewild,  in  which  he  became  a  vestryman  and 
used  to  pass  the  plate.  Once  he  even  made  a 
speech  at  a  public  meeting,  in  favor  of  dividing 
the  county.  Letters  xxxix.  and  XL.  in  "Out 
Doors  at  Idlewild,"  giving  a  graphic  description 
of  the  ascent  of  Storm  King,  are  perhaps  the 
best  thing  in  the  volume. 

Among  the  many  guests  attracted  to  Idlewild 
by  the  hospitalities  of  its  owner  and  his  inviting 
pictures  of  his  highland  retreat  were  numbers 
of  literary  men  and  artists.1  Bayard  Taylor, 

1  J.  Addison   Richards  visited  Idlewild  to  make  sketches 


332  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

Charles  A.  Dana,  De  Trobriand,  of  the  "  Cour- 
rier  des  Etats-Unis  ; "  Hicks  and  Kensett,  the 
painters,  came  up  from  New  York  at  various 
times,  and  rambled,  bathed,  or  otherwise  dis 
ported  themselves  in  the  glen.  Whipple  and 
Fields  ran  across  from  Boston  and  made  a  pleas 
ant  visit  of  two  or  three  days,  of  which  both  af 
terwards  gave  reminiscences.  Fields  loved  to 
recall  an  anecdote  that  Willis  told  him,  "  of  his 
watching  a  little  ragged  girl,  one  day  in  London, 
who  was  peering  through  an  area  railing.  A 
window  of  a  comfortable  eating-house  gave  upon 
this  area,  and  a  man  sat  at  the  window  taking 
a  good  dinner.  The  child  watched  his  every 
movement,  saw  him  take  a  beefsteak  and  get  all 
things  in  readiness  to  begin ;  then  he  stopped  and 
looked  round.  4  Now  a  pertaty,'  murmured  the 
child." 

In  the  summer  of  1854,  Willis  had  a  call 
from  his  down-river  neighbor,  Washington  Ir 
ving,  and  repaid  it  at  Sunnyside  in  1859,  in  com 
pany  with  J.  P.  Kennedy  and  Lieutenant  Wise, 
the  author  of  "  Los  Gringos,"  who  had  both 
been  passing  a  day  or  two  with  him  at  Idlewild. 
Irving  drove  them  through  Sleepy  Hollow,  as 
recounted  in  "  The  Convalescent,"  in  which  this 
visit  fills  an  agreeable  chapter  ;  and  Willis  char- 

for  his  illustrated  article  in  Harper's  Magazine  for  January, 
1858,  q.  v.  for  a  full  description  of  the  place. 


IDLE  WILD  AND  LAST  DAYS.  333 

acteristically  begged  his  host  to  give  him  his 
blotting-sheet  for  memorabilia,  as  being  "  the 
door-mat  on  which  the  thoughts  of  Irving's  last 
book  had  wiped  their  sandals  as  they  went  in." 
"  The  Convalescent  "  (1859)  was  the  last  book 
which  Willis  published,  if  we  except  some  late 
editions  of  his  poems,  but  there  are  gleams  in  it, 
here  and  there,  of  the  wit  and  fancy  that  never 
quite  forsook  him.  There  was,  for  instance,  a 
long  and  very  dark  covered  bridge  over  Moodna 
Creek,  which  he  always  entered  with  dread, 
when  on  horseback,  and  which  he  described  as 
giving  "  a  promise  of  emergence  to  light  on  the 
other  side,  which  required  the  faith  of  a  gimlet." 
Upon  the  whole,  it  would  be  a  very  difficult 
reader  who  should  refuse  to  admit  the  plea 
which  the  author  urges  in  behalf  of  books  of 
"  The  Convalescent  "  kind.  "  I  learned  also,  to 
my  comfort,  that  Nature  publishes  some  volumes 
with  many  leaves,  which  are  not  intended  to  be 
of  any  posthumous  value  —  the  white  poplar  not 
lasting  three  moonlight  nights  after  it  is  cut 
down.  Even  with  such  speedy  decay,  however, 
it  throws  a  pleasant  shade  while  it  flourishes  ; 
and  so,  white  poplar  literature,  recognized  as  a 
class  in  literature,  should  have  its  brief  summer 
of  indulgence." 

Willis  found  that  his  best  medicine  was  horse 
back  riding,  and  spent  as  many  hours  as  he  could 


334  NATHANIEL   PARKER    WILLIS. 

in  the  saddle.  His  horses  and  dogs  were  a  great 
source  of  amusement  to  him.  One  of  his  spe 
cial  pets  was  Caesar,  a  superb  Newfoundland, 
that  had  been  with  Dr.  Kane  on  one  of  his  Arc 
tic  voyages,  and  was  afterwards  presented  to 
Willis.  When  it  died  its  grave  at  Idlewild  was 
marked  by  a  marble  slab,  the  gift  of  Brown,  the 
famous  Grace  Church  sexton,  with  an  epitaph  of 
his  own  composition.  The  slab  was  on  exhibi 
tion  for  a  time,  in  July,  1862,  at  Barnum's  mu 
seum,  and  the  inscription  on  it  ran  as  follows :  — 

CAESAR, 

WHO   MADE    THE   VOYAGE    TO   THE   ARCTIC 

REGIONS    WITH    DR.    KANE, 

AND    WAS   AFTERWARDS    THE    FAVORITE    DOG    OF    THE    CHIL 
DREN    OF    IDLEWILD, 
LIES    BURIED    BENEATH    THIS    STONE. 

Died  December  7,  1861,  aged  thirteen  years. 

Thy  master's  record  of  thy  worth  made  thee  of  great  renown, 
And  caused  this  tribute  to  thy  memory  from  Sexton  Brown. 

In  1854  a  book  was  published  which  became 
the  occasion  of  many  heart-burnings,  and  of  ac 
cusations  against  Willis  that  have  not  yet  ceased 
to  go  the  rounds  of  the  newspapers.  This  was 
w  Ruth  Hall,  a  Domestic  Tale  of  the  Present 
Time,"  by  Fanny  Fern.  The  lady  who  wrote 
under  this  pen  name  was  his  younger  sister,  Sa 
rah,  the  author  of  much  cleverish  literature  — 
"  Fern  Leaves,"  and  the  like  —  which  once  en- 


IDLE  WILD  AND  LAST  DAYS.  335 

joyed  a  prodigious  circulation.  She  was  the  en~ 
fant  terrible  of  the  family,  a  warm-hearted,  im 
pulsive  woman,  but  not  always  discreet.  By  the 
death  of  her  husband,  Charles  Eldridge  of  Bos 
ton,  she  had  been  suddenly  reduced  from  com 
fort  to  poverty.  She  afterwards  contracted  an 
unfortunate  marriage  with  a  Mr.  Farrington, 
from  whom  she  was  finally  divorced.  To  sup 
port  herself  and  her  children,  she  turned  instinc 
tively  to  literature,  in  which  she  at  last  made  a 
decided  hit.  Among  other  things  she  offered 
some  contributions  to  the  "  Home  Journal ;  " 
but  Willis,  whose  literary  taste,  though  certainly 
not  severe,  was  fastidious  in  its  way,  could  not 
see  merit  enough  in  his  sister's  writing,  and  dis 
liked  what  he  regarded  as  its  noisy,  rattling 
style.  He  felt  obliged  to  decline  her  articles, 
but  that  there  was  any  literary  jealousy  in  this, 
as  is  intimated  in  "  Ruth  Hall,"  will  hardly  be 
believed,  when  his  eagerness  to  welcome  and 
patronize  young  writers  is  remembered.  It 
seems  to  have  sprung  from  an  original  opposition 
in  character  and  taste  between  the  two.  But  it 
naturally  made  hard  feeling  and  led  to  recrimi 
nations.  Mr.  James  Parton,  who  was  then  sub 
editor  of  the  "  Home  Journal,"  took  Fanny 
Fern's  part,  and  the  acquaintance  thus  begun 
soon  ripened  into  an  engagement  of  marriage. 
There  was  a  scene,  in  consequence,  in  the  office 


336  NATHANIEL  PARKER    WILLIS. 

of  the  "  Home  Journal,"  and  Mr.  Parton  retired 
from  the  paper,  his  place  being  supplied  by  Mr. 
T.  B.  Aldrich.  Smarting  under  a  sense  of  neg 
lect  by  her  kinsfolk,  Fanny  Fern  wrote  and 
printed  this  novel  of  "  Ruth  Hall,"  in  which, 
under  a  very  thin  mask  of  fiction,  she  washed 
a  deal  of  family  linen  in  public.  Willis  figures 
therein  as  Hyacinth,  a  "  heartless  puppy,"  who 
worships  social  position,  has  married  an  heiress, 
inhabits  a  villa  on  the  Hudson,  and  is  the  pros 
perous  editor  of  the  "  Irving  Magazine."  When 
Ruth  asks  him  to  help  her  by  printing  her  pieces 
in  this  periodical,  he  coldly  assures  her  that  she 
has  no  talent,  and  advises  her  to  seek  "  some 
unobtrusive  employment."  But  when  she  be 
comes  famous  and  begins  to  get  letters  from 
college  presidents,  begging  her  for  her  auto 
graph,  and  from  grateful  readers,  saying,  "  I 
am  a  better  son,  a  better  brother,  a  better  hus 
band,  and  a  better  father  than  I  was  before  I 
commenced  reading  your  articles.  God  bless 
you ! "  then,  under  these  triumphant  circum 
stances,  Hyacinth,  who  had  given  $100  for  a 
vase  when  Ruth  was  starving,  is  proud  to  point 
out  to  a  friend,  as  they  sit  together  in  the  porch 
of  his  country  seat,  a  beautiful  schooner  tack 
ing  up  stream  with  "  Floy,"  his  sister's  nom-de- 
plume,  painted  on  the  bows. 

Against  this  caricature  of  himself  Willis  made 


IDLEW1LD  AND  LAST  DAYS.  337 

no  public  protest.  When  a  man  is  wounded  in 
the  house  of  his  friends,  his  only  refuge  is  si 
lence.  But  in  private  and  to  his  intimates  he 
asserted  that  the  attack  upon  him  in  "Ruth 
Hall"  was  most  unfair;  that  he  had  helped  his 
sister  in  the  early  days  of  her  widowhood,  but 
that  after  her  second  marriage  and  divorce  he 
had  ceased  to  have  any  communication  with  her, 
and  felt  justified  in  letting  her  alone.  Willis 
was  doubtless  a  man  who  took  his  responsibili 
ties  lightly.  But  had  he  felt  called  upon  to  do 
his  utmost  for  Fanny  Fern,  even  to  the  end,  it  is 
easy  to  see  how  his  hands  were  tied  in  various 
ways.  He  had  an  expensive  family  of  his  own, 
whose  support  depended  upon  his  pen.  His 
home  on  the  Hudson  had  been  purchased  with 
his  wife's  inheritance.  As  to  paying  his  sister 
for  articles  in  the  "  Home  Journal,"  supposing 
them  to  have  been  otherwise  acceptable,  the 
editors  were  constantly  reiterating  that  the  pa 
per  did  not,  as  a  rule,  pay  its  contributors  a  ay- 
thing,  and  could  not  afford  to  do  so.  It  paid  its 
own  editorial  staff,  and  that  was  all.  Contribu 
tors  were  glad  to  write  for  it  for  the  pleasure 
of  seeing  themselves  in  print. 

Willis  continued  to  put  forth  permutations 
and  combinations  of  old  matter  under  new  titles, 
as  long  as  his  books  would  sell.  "Fun  Jottings," 
"  Ephemera,"  "  Famous  Persons  and  Places," 

22 


338  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

and  "  The  Rag-Bag  "  were  all  made  up  from  the 
contents  of  previous  volumes,  or  the  teeming 
sheets  of  the  "  Mirror  "  and  "  Home  Journal." 
But  in  1857  he  published  something  new,  "  Paul 
Fane,"  his  only  novel,  and  the  only  book  which 
he  wrote  as  a  book,  and  not  as  one  or  more  con 
tributions  to  periodicals.  So  exclusively  &feuil- 
letoniste  had  he  made  himself,  that  any  talent 
for  construction  on  a  larger  scale  which  he  may 
once  have  had  was  quite  frittered  away. 

"  It  has  been  with  difficult  submission  to  market- 
ableness,"  he  had  written  in  his  preface  to  "  Dashes 
at  Life,"  "  that  the  author  has  broken  up  his  statues 
at  the  joints  and  furnished  each  fragment  with  head 
and  legs  to  walk  alone.  Continually  accumulating 
material,  with  the  desire  to  produce  a  work  of  fiction, 
he  was  as  continually  tempted  by  extravagant  prices 
to  shape  these  separate  forms  of  society  and  character 
into  tales  for  periodicals  ;  and  between  two  persuad 
ers  —  the  law  of  copyright,  on  the  one  hand,  provid 
ing  that  American  books  at  fair  prices  should  compete 
with  books  to  be  had  for  nothing ;  and  necessity,  on 
the  other  hand,  pleading  much  more  potently  than  the 
ambition  for  an  adult  stature  in  literary  fame  —  he 
has  gone  on  acquiring  a  habit  of  dashing  off  for  a 
magazine  any  chance  view  of  life  that  turned  up  to 
him,  and  selling  in  fragmentary  chapters  what  should 
have  been  kept  together,  and  moulded  into  a  propor 
tionate  work  of  imagination." 

If  "  Paul  Fane,  or  Parts  of  a  Life  Else  Un- 


IDLE  WILD  AND  LAST  DAYS.  339 

told  "  was  a  response  to  this  artistic  craving  for 
unity  in  a  sustained  work,  its  author  had  waited 
too  late.  It  was,  in  effect,  a  poor  novel ;  and 
—  what  was  unusual  with  Willis,  even  at  his 
thinnest  —  it  was  dull.  The  story  is  told  in  the 
first  person,  and  the  hero  is  a  young  American 
artist,  who,  feeling  his  social  equality  challenged 
by  a  look  in  the  eyes  of  a  cold  English  girl 
of  high  birth,  is  driven  abroad  by  a  restless  de 
termination  to  put  himself  on  a  level  with  any 
nobility  that  hereditary  rank  can  bestow.  He 
brings  the  haughtiest  daughters  of  Albion  to  his 
feet.  Three  or  four  women  fall  in  love  with 
him,  including  the  original  offender  and  her 
aunt,  but  he  will  none  of  them.  It  is  Willis's 
old  theme  of  nature's  nobleman  versus  caste. 
The  novel  was  an  experiment,  before  the  times 
were  ripe,  in  that  field  of  international  manners 
which  has  since  been  so  cleverly  occupied  by 
Henry  James.  It  tries  to  deal  with  the  per 
plexities  and  real  miseries,  which  arise  not  so 
much  from  the  deeper  conflicts  of  character  as 
from  the  attempt  to  adjust  hostile  social  stand 
ards.  Mr.  James  has  made  a  very  interesting 
story  out  of  the  simple  episode  of  a  young  Eng 
lish  lady  marrying  an  American,  coming  to 
America  to  live,  and  then,  not  finding  American 
ways  to  her  taste,  taking  her  husband  back  to 
England  with  her.  But  Willis  was  not  well 


340  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

equipped  for  success  in  this  field.  He  could  not 
keep  liis  fancy  in  check ;  there  must  be  a  dash  of 
romance,  of  exaggeration  in  his  tale.  And  he 
was  a  quick  observer  rather  than  a  patient  stu 
dent  of  manners,  as  of  other  things.  He  lacked 
the  sober,  truthful  vigilance  of  James  and  How- 
ells.  Miss  Firkin,  in  this  book,  an  overdone 
Daisy  Miller,  and  Blivins,  an  American  type 
once  rumored  to  have  existed,  but  inconceivable 
at  this  distance  of  time,  show  how  far  his  exe 
cution  fell  below  the  fine  and  solid  work  of  our 
contemporary  realists.  There  are  passages  of 
vulgarity  in  "  Paul  Fane  "  which  are  a  surprise 
in  any  book  of  Willis's,  but  which  came  rather 
from  the  weakness  and  failure  of  his  hand  in  its 
attempt  to  execute  scenes  of  broad  humor,  than 
from  any  crudity  of  feeling.  This  kind  of  vio 
lent  and  assumed  indelicacy  on  the  part  of  nat 
urally  refined  writers,  when  they  are  trying  to 
put  on  the  healthy  coarseness  of  a  Hogarth  or 
Teniers,  is  a  not  uncommon  phenomenon  ;  dainti 
ness  mistaking  coarseness  for  the  strength  of 
which  it  is  often  a  sign  or  an  accompaniment. 

In  "  The  Convalescent  "  were  included  narra 
tives  of  a  trip  to  the  Rappahannock,  to  Nan- 
tucket,  and  to  the  horse  fair  at  Springfield,  Mas 
sachusetts.  In  July,  1860,  Willis  accompanied 
Mr.  Grinnell  on  a  journey  to  the  West,  —  re 
ported  for  the  "Home  Journal"  as  a  "Three 


IDLE  WILD  AND  LAST  DAYS.  341 

Weeks'  Trip  to  the  West,"  —  going  to  Yellow 
Springs,  Ohio,  and  Chicago,  and  as  far  as  Mad 
ison,  Wisconsin ;  then  descending  the  Mississippi 
in  a  steamboat  to  St.  Louis,  and  returning  East 
by  way  of  Cincinnati  and  Pittsburgh. 

In  Willis's  later  writings  his  verbal  affecta 
tions  gained  upon  him  to  an  intolerable  extent. 
"  Mr.  N.  P.  Willis,"  says  Bartlett  in  his  "  Dic 
tionary  of  Americanisms,"  "  has  the  reputation 
of  inventing  many  new  words,  some  of  which, 
though  not  yet  embodied  in  our  dictionaries,  are 
much  used  in  familiar  language."  One  of  the 
phrases  which  Bartlett  accredits  to  him  is,  "  the 
upper  ten," -- originally  and  in  full,  "  the  upper 
ten  thousand  of  New  York  city."  This  seems 
likely  to  keep  its  place  in  the  language.  "  Ja- 
ponicadom  "  took  at  the  time,  but  has  now  gone 
out.  He  had  a  fondness  for  agglutinations. 
"  Come-at-able  "  is  a  convenient  word  which  is 
traced  to  his  mint ;  and  Professor  George  P. 
Marsh,  in  his  "  Origin  and  History  of  the  Eng 
lish  Language,"  lends  the  weight  of  his  author 
ity  to  Willis's  "  Stay-at-home-itiveness,"  as  a 
synonym  for  the  Greek  oiKovpia,  and  the  early 
English  studesta2)elvestnesse.  But  such  philo 
logical  monsters  as  re-June-venescence,  worth 
while  -  ativeness,  fifty  -  per  -  centity,  with  which 
some  of  his  books  are  strewn,  have  a  painfully 
forced  effect,  and  the  trick  became,  from  repeti* 


342  NATHANIEL  PARKER    WILLIS. 

tion,  a  tedious  mannerism.  Punning,  likewise, 
was  a  habit  which  grew  upon  him,  though  both  of 
these  offenses  are  commoner  in  his  private  cor 
respondence  than  in  his  published  work. 

At  the  outbreak  of  the  civil  war  in  the  spring 
of  1861,  there  was  a  rush  of  newspaper  men 
to  Washington.  It  was  decided  that  the  "  Home 
Journal,"  too,  should  have  its  war  correspondent, 
and  accordingly  Willis,  bidding  good-by  to  Idle- 
wild,  flung  himself  into  the  tide  of  journalists, 
soldiers,  politicians,  office-seekers,  contractors, 
and  speculators  of  all  sorts,  setting  toward  the 
seat  of  government.  At  Baltimore  he  stayed  over 
a  day  with  his  friend  Kennedy,  who  was  promi 
nently  mentioned  for  the  secretaryship  of  the 
navy,  and  who  went  on  to  Washington  with  Wil 
lis,  where  the  latter  introduced  him  and  Reverdy 
Johnson  to  Mrs.  Lincoln.  The  feeding  of  the 
"  Home  Journal  "  press  with  "  Lookings-on  at 
the  War  "  proved  a  longer  job  than  Willis  had 
anticipated.  It  kept  him  in  Washington  for 
over  a  year,  with  occasional  furloughs  for  a  hur 
ried  visit  home.  He  had  always  been  curiously 
indifferent  to  politics.  His  opinions  had  been 
Whiggish,  and  he  was,  of  course,  a  Union  man. 
But  he  retained  a  secret  sympathy  with  the 
South,  and  a  liking  for  "  those  chivalrous,  poly 
syllabic  Southerners,  incapable  of  a  short  word  or 
a  mean  action,"  whom  he  had  known  at  Saratoga 


IDLE  WILD  AND  LAST  DAYS.  343 

years  before.  Nevertheless,  he  dropped  his  light 
plummet  of  observation  into  the  boiling  sea  of 
the  civil  war,  where  it  was  tossed  about  at  no 
great  depth  below  the  surface.  It  is  interesting 
to  compare  his  letters  from  the  capital  with  the 
patriotic  fervor  and  swing  of  such  martial 
sketches  as  Theodore  Winthrop's  "  Washington 
as  a  Camp."  The  war,  indeed,  may  be  said  to 
have  made  Willis  and  the  kind  of  literature 
which  he  cultivated  obsolete  for  a  time.  A 
more  earnest  generation  of  writers  had  come  to 
the  fore,  who  struck  their  roots  deeper  down  into 
the  life  of  the  nation.  Mr.  Derby,  the  publisher, 
proposed  in  1863  to  make  a  book  out  of  Willis's 
"  Lookings-on  at  the  War,"  but  the  project 
hung  fire  for  some  reason,  and  "  The  Convales 
cent  "  remained,  as  has  been  said,  his  last  publi 
cation  in  book  form. 

Willis  found  all  the  world  at  Washington ; 
among  the  rest,  Lady  Georgiana  Fane,  whom  he 
presented  to  Mrs.  Lincoln.  "  Fancy  anticipat 
ing  this  at  Alinack's  twenty-five  years  ago !  "  he 
wrote  of  this  conjunction,  in  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Wil 
lis.  He  met  Charles  Sumner,  whom  he  had 
known  in  Boston,  and  had  a  long  talk  with  him 
about  the  political  situation  ;  found  Pierpont, 
the  poet,  employed  as  a  clerk  in  one  of  the  de 
partments,  and  got  rooms  for  him  and  Mrs. 
Pierpont  in  the  house  where  he  lodged  himself  ; 


344  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

was  introduced  to  General  McClellan  and  to  the 
cabinet  officers,  and  the  numerous  congressmen 
and  brigadiers  who  swarmed  Pennsylvania  Ave 
nue  and  crowded  the  lobbies  at  Willard's.  He 
went  out  to  all  manner  of  receptions  and  dinner 
parties,  and  became  quite  a  favorite  with  Mrs. 
Lincoln,  who  drove  him  out  frequently  in  her 
barouche,  had  him  to  dine  en  famille  at  the 
White  House,  sent  him  flowers,  and  promised 
him  a  vase  presented  to  the  President  by  the 
Emperor  of  China.  In  one  of  his  letters  to  the 
"  Home  Journal,"  he  had  described  her  as  hav 
ing  a  "  motherly  expression,"  whereupon  she  ad 
dressed  him  the  following  note  :  — 

EXECUTIVE  MANSION,  July  2^th. 
MR.  N.  P.  WILLIS  : 

Dear  Sir,  —  It  will  afford  me  much  pleasure  to 
receive  yourself  and  ladies  *  this  evening.  Of  course 
anything  Mr.  Willis  writes  is  interesting,  yet,  pardon 
my  weakness,  I  object  to  the  "  motherly  expression." 
If  you  value  my  friendship,  hasten  to  have  it  cor 
rected  before  the  public  is  assured  that  I  am  an  old 
lady  with  spectacles.  When  I  am  forty,  four  years 
hence,  I  will  willingly  yield  to  the  decrees  of  time  and 
fate. 

Rather  an  indication,  is  it  not,  that  years  have  not 
passed  us  lightly  by  ?  I  rely  on  you  for  changing 
that  expression  before  my  age  is  publicly  proclaimed. 

1  Lady  G.  Fane  and  Mrs.  Clifford. 


IDLE  WILD  AND  LAST  DAYS.  345 

Quite  a  morning  lecture,  yet  you  certainly  deserve  it. 

Be  kind  enough  to  accept  this  modest  bouquet  from 

Your  sincere  friend, 

MARY  LINCOLN. 


A  sudden  fit  of  sickness  had  hindered  Willis's 
plan  to  follow  the  army  to  Bull  Kun  —  fortu 
nately,  no  doubt,  as  the  correspondent  who  took 
his  place  was  made  prisoner.  He  afterwards 
took  horseback  rides  into  the  enemy's  country, 
once  narrowly  escaping  capture  near  Mount 
Vernon,  and  made  excursions  to  Fortress  Mon 
roe,  Manassas,  Old  Point  Comfort,  etc.  On 
March  15,  1862,  he  was  of  the  party  which  vis 
ited  Harper's  Ferry  at  the  invitation  of  the 
president  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad. 
Hawthorne,  too,  was  of  the  party  and  reported 
the  occasion  in  his  article,  "  Chiefly  about  War 
Matters,"  in  the  July  "Atlantic"  of  that  year. 
"  Hawthorne  is  shy  and  reserved,"  wrote  Willis 
in  one  of  his  letters  to  his  wife,  "  but  I  found 
he  was  a  lover  of  mine,  and  we  enjoyed  our  ac 
quaintance  very  much."  Emerson  and  Curtis 
lectured  in  Washington  while  Willis  was  there, 
and  Greeley  dined  with  him  in  January,  1862. 
The  novelty  and  excitement  of  life  at  the  capi 
tal  were  agreeable  at  first,  but  he  soon  grew 
homesick  and  pined  for  his  beloved  Idlewild. 

In  consequence  of  the  war,  the  circulation  of 


346  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

the  "  Home  Journal,"  a  large  proportion  of 
whose  subscribers  were  in  the  South,  had  fallen 
off  seriously.  Willis  found  himself  greatly 
straitened,  and  was  obliged  to  close  his  country 
house  for  a  time.  Mrs.  Willis  and  the  children 
had  spent  the  winter  and  spring  of  1861-62  at 
New  Bedford,  with  her  father.  In  April  she 
rented  Idlewild  and  went  with  her  family  to  pass 
the  summer  at  Campton,  near  Plymouth,  New 
Hampshire.  In  June  Willis  left  Washington  and 
joined  her  at  Campton  for  a  few  days,  and  then 
returned  to  New  York  and  took  lodgings  for 
himself.  Morris's  health  had  grown  so  feeble 
that  it  became  necessary  for  his  partner  to  apply 
himself  more  closely  to  the  management  of  the 
paper  and  do  double  work.  He  had  been  much 
opposed  to  the  renting  of  Idlewild,  and  it  trou 
bled  him  to  think  of  the  place  in  the  hands  of 
strangers.  He  paid  it  a  visit  in  August,  by  in 
vitation  of  his  tenant,  a  Mr.  Dennis,  and  was 
very  hospitably  treated.  In  the  autumn  of  the 
following  year  (1863)  Mrs.  Willis  opened  at 
Idlewild  a  little  school  for  girls,  in  the  hope  of 
persuading  her  husband  to  leave  New  York  and 
come  home  for  life.  He  appreciated  her  energy 
and  devotion,  —  shown  through  long  years  of 
failing  health  and  fortune,  —  but  he  doomed 
himself  to  homeless  exile,  and  refused  to  aban 
don  his  post.  He  was  opposed  to  the  school 


IDLE  WILD  AND  LAST  DAYS.  347 

project,  as  he  had  been  to  the  renting  of  Idle- 
wild,  unreasonably,  no  doubt,  since  something 
of  the  kind  had  to  be  done.  But  it  touched 
his  pride,  and  with  increasing  illness  there  grew 
upon  him  a  morbid  horror  of  dependence  on 
any  one.  He  fancied  that  he  could  work  bet 
ter  in  his  New  York  lodgings.  By  1864,  more 
over,  Morris  had  become  quite  imbecile,  and 
the  responsibilities  of  editorship  weighed  more 
and  more  heavily  011  Willis.  He  remained  at 
New  York,  therefore,  running  up  to  Idlewild 
for  an  occasional  visit  of  a  day  or  two,  over 
Sunday,  or  sometimes  for  a  week  at  a  time. 
In  July,  1864,  General  Morris  died.  Willis 
was  deeply  moved  as  he  stood  by  his  coffin. 
"  My  beloved  old  friend,"  he  wrote,  "  looked 
wonderfully  tranquil,  and  so  sweetly  noble  that  I 
could  not  forbear  giving  him  a  parting  kiss, 
though  William  sobbed  as  he  looked  on.  So 
passes  from  earth  one  who  loved  me  devotedly." 
After  Morris's  death  Willis  took  into  partner 
ship  a  young  man  named  Hollister,  who  had 
capital  and  enthusiasm  ;  but  the  business  man 
agement  of  the  "  Home  Journal  "  began  to  fall 
more  and  more  upon  the  shoulders  of  its  present 
editor,  Mr.  Morris  Phillips. 

The  story  of  the  last  few  years  of  Willis's 
life  is  a  melancholy  chronicle  of  failing  powers, 
and  of  persistent  struggle  with  disease  and  nar- 


348  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

rowing  fates.  He  had  long  borne  up  against  ill 
health  with  the  gay  courage  of  a  cavalier.  His 
pen  faltered,  but  nothing  that  it  wrote  gave 
signs  of  bitterness  or  discouragement.  Toward 
the  last  his  temper,  which  had  been  uniformly 
sweet,  sometimes  grew  irritable  and  morbid, 
though  nothing  of  this  appeared  in  his  writing. 
As  early  as  1852  he  had  fancied  that  he  had 
consumption,  but  his  cough  turned  out  to  be 
merely  "  sympathetic,"  and  his  lungs  were  pro 
nounced  sound.  His  disease  finally  declared  it 
self  as  epilepsy,  and  resulted  at  the  last  in  pa 
ralysis  and  softening  of  the  brain.  He  was 
subject  for  years  to  epileptic  fits,  occurring  pe 
riodically,  usually  on  the  tenth  day.  During 
these  attacks,  so  long  as  his  strength  lasted,  he 
was  extremely  violent,  but  as  he  grew  weaker, 
they  simply  made  him  unconscious,  leaving  him 
greatly  prostrated  when  the  fit  was  over.  The 
true  nature  of  his  malady  was,  for  some  years, 
known  only  to  his  wife  and  his  physician,  Dr. 
Gray,  who  feared  that  it  might  injure  Willis's 
business  and  literary  interests  if  it  were  publicly 
understood  that  his  brain  was  affected,  or  in 
danger  of  being  affected.  Willis  was  himself 
very  sensitive  011  this  point,  and  begged  that  no 
stranger  might  see  him  during  his  attacks.  Ac 
cordingly,  the  matter  was  kept  secret  as  long  as 
possible.  After  Willis's  death,  one  of  his  phy- 


IDLE  WILD  AND  LAST  DAYS.  349 

sicians,  Dr.  J.  B.  F.  Walker,  printed  some 
"  Medical  Reminiscences  of  N.  P.  Willis,"  in 
the  course  of  which  he  said :  "  Not  only  was  he  a 
martyr  to  the  agonies  of  sharp  and  sudden  at 
tacks,  but  he  suffered  all  the  languors  of  chronic 
disease.  With  the  exception  of  Henry  Heine, 
there  has  hardly  been  a  man  of  letters  doomed 
to  such  protracted  torments  from  bodily  dis 
ease." 

Under  these  trying  circumstances  he  exhibited 
a  persistence  in  his  work  which  astonished  his 
friends.  They  had  not  thought  that  such  endur 
ance  was  in  the  man.  But  from  some  underly 
ing  stratum  of  character,  some  strain  of  tough 
ness  inherent  in  his  Puritan  stock,  he  brought 
up  resources  of  will  and  stubbornness  which  re 
sisted  all  appeals.  Though  complaining  some 
times  in  his  letters  that  he  was  "  pitilessly  over 
worked,"  he  declared  his  intention  of  dying  in 
harness,  and  clung  to  his  desk  and  his  lonely 
lodgings  till  the  doctors  pronounced  him  a  dying 
man.  A  part  of  the  summers  of  1865  and  1866 
he  spent  at  Idlewild,  but  the  autumn  of  the  lat 
ter  year  found  him  still  at  work  in  the  city.  He 
was  now  so  weak  that  he  often  fainted  in  the 
street  and  had  to  be  carried  to  his  rooms.  His 
partner,  Morris  Phillips,  was  untiring  in  his  at 
tentions  ;  and  finally,  early  in  November,  he 
brought  him  home  to  Idlewild,  Willis  yielding 


350  NATHANIEL  PARKER   WILLIS. 

at  last  to  the  united  entreaties  of  his  wife,  his 
father,  and  his  sisters,  and  the  imperative  com 
mand  of  his  doctor,  to  stop  work.  But  he  had 
come  home  only  to  die.  He  kept  his  room  and 
seldom  went  down-stairs.  During;  the  first  month 

O 

he  had  some  enjoyment  of  the  home  associations, 
taking  pleasure  in  the  daily  visit  of  his  children, 
and  listening  to  the  reading  of  poetry,  more  for 
its  soothing  effect  than  for  any  intellectual  ap 
prehension  of  it.  He  soon  became  helpless  and 
slept  much  of  the  time,  and  when  waking  lived  in 
continual  visions  and  hallucinations.  His  rec 
ognition  of  his  family  was  fitful  during  the  last 
six  or  eight  weeks  of  his  life.  He  was  watched 
and  cared  for  by  his  wife  and  faithful  Harriet, 
and  no  strange  hand  ministered  to  him  or 
marked  his  failing  consciousness.  He  died  on 
the  afternoon  of  the  20th  of  January,  1867,  — 
his  sixty-first  birthday,  —  so  quietly  that  the  sin 
gle  watcher  could  not  say  when.  He  was  taken 
to  Boston,  and  buried  in  Mount  Auburn.  The 
funeral  service  of  the  Episcopal  Church  was 
read  over  his  body  in  St.  Paul's  Church,  by  the 
Rev.  F.  D.  Huntington,  the  bookstores  of  the 
city  being  closed,  in  token  of  respect,  while 
the  service  lasted.  His  pall  was  borne  by  Long 
fellow,  Dana,  Holmes,  Lowell,  Fields,  Whipple, 
Edmund  Quincy,  Dr.  Howe,  Merritt  Trimble, 
and  Aldrich.  "  I  took  the  flower  which  lies  be- 


IDLE  WILD  AND  LAST  DAYS.  351 

fore  me  at  this  moment,  as  I  write,"  says  Dr. 
Holmes,  in  a  recent  number  of  the  "  Atlantic," 
"  from  his  coffin,  as  it  lay  just  outside  the  door 
of  Saint  Paul's  Church,  on  a  sad,  overclouded 
winter's  day,  in  the  year  1867." 

The  obituary  notices  which  were  published  af 
ter  Willis's  death  made  it  evident  that  he  had, 
in  a  sense,  survived  his  own  fame.  They  were 
reminiscent  in  tone,  as  though  addressed  to  a 
generation  that  knew  not  Joseph.  It  was  forty 
years  since  he  had  come  before  the  public  with 
his  maiden  book.  It  was  twenty  since  he  had 
put  forth  anything  entitled  to  live  ;  and  mean 
while  a  new  literature  had  grown  up  in  America. 
The  bells  of  morning  tinkled  faintly  and  far  off, 
lost  in  the  noise  of  fife  and  drum,  and  the  war 
opened  its  chasm  between  the  present  and  the 
past.  For  a  time  even  Irving  seemed  sentimen 
tal  and  Cooper  melodramatic.  Yet  these  sur 
vive,  but  whether  Willis,  whose  name  has  so 
often  been  joined  with  theirs,  is  destined  to  find 
still  a  hearing,  it  is  for  the  future  alone  to  say. 
"  He  will  be  remembered,"  wrote  his  kinsman, 
Dr.  Richard  S.  Storrs,  "  as  a  man  eminently  hu 
man,  with  almost  unique  endowments,  devoting 
rare  powers  to  insignificant  purposes,  and  curi 
ously  illustrating  the  '  fine  irony  of  Nature,'  with 
which  she  often  lavishes  one  of  her  choice  pro 
ductions  on  comparatively  inferior  ends." 


352  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS. 

But,  laying  aside  all  question  of  appeal  to  that 
formidable  tribunal,  posterity,  the  many  contem 
poraries  who  have  owed  hours  of  refined  enjoy 
ment  to  his  graceful  talent  will  join  heartily 
with  Thackeray  in  his  assertion  :  "  It  is  comfort 
able  that  there  should  have  been  a  Willis." 


APPENDIX. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

THE  following  is  a  list  of  the  first  editions  of  Wil 
lis's  books.  In  a  few  instances  these  were  published 
first  in  England.  In  such  cases  the  London  edition 
only  is  given.  Most  of  his  later  works  were  published 
simultaneously,  or  nearly  so,  in  England  and  America. 
In  such  cases  only  the  first  American  edition  is  given. 
Of  the  various  collective  editions  of  his  verse,  pub 
lished  since  1844,  only  the  final  and  most  complete  is 
mentioned,  viz.,  the  Clark  &  Maynard  edition  of 
1868  (No.  29).  No  really  complete  edition  of  Wil 
lis's  writings  has  ever  been  printed.  The  first  collec 
tive  edition  which  laid  claim  to  being  complete  was 
entitled :  The  Complete  Works  of  N.  P.  Willis.  1 
vol.,  895  pp.  New  York:  J.  S.  Redfield,  1846. 
The  thirteen  volumes  in  uniform  style,  issued  by 
Charles  Scribner  from  1849  to  1859,  form  as  nearly 
a  complete  edition  of  Willis's  prose  since  1846  as  is 
ever  likely  to  be  made. 

1.  Sketches.     96  pp.     Boston  :  S.  G.  Goodrich,  1827. 

2.  Fugitive    Poetry.     91  pp.     Boston  :    Peirce  &  Wil 

liams,  1829. 
23 


354  APPENDIX. 

3.  Poem  delivered  before  the  Society  of  United  Brothers, 

at  Brown  University,  on  the  Day  preceding  Com 
mencement,  September  6,  1831,  with  other  poems. 
76  pp.  New  York  :  J.  &  J.  Harper,  1831. 

4.  Melanie  and  Other  Poems.     Edited  by  Barry  Corn 

wall.  231  pp.  London  :  Saunders  &  Otley,  1835. 
The  first  American  edition  was  published  by  Saun 
ders  &  Otley,  at  New  York,  in  1837,  and  contained 
some  additional  pieces.  242  pp. 

5.  Pencillings  by  the  Way.     3  vols.    London  :  Macrone, 

1835. 

This  was  an  imperfect  edition.  The  first  complete 
edition  was  published  by  Morris  &  Willis,  in  the 
"  Mirror  Library,"  New  York,  1844. 

6.  Inklings  of  Adventure.     3  vols.     London  :  Saunders 

&  Otley,  1836. 

7.  Bianca  Visconti ;  or,  The  Heart  Overtasked.    A  Trag 

edy  in  Five  Acts.  New  York  :  Samuel  Colman, 
1839. 

8.  Tortesa  ;  or,  The  Usurer  Matched.     A  Play  by  N.  P. 

Willis.  New  York  :  Samuel  Colman,  1839. 
Nos.  7  and  8  were  published  in  one  volume  in  Eng 
land.  Two  Ways  of  Dying  for  a  Husband.  1. 
Dying  to  keep  Him  ;  or,  Tortesa  the  Usurer.  2. 
Dying  to  lose  Him  ;  or,  Bianca  Visconti.  245  pp. 
London  :  Hugh  Cunningham,  1839. 

9.  Al'Abri  ;  or,  The  Tent  Pitched.     New  York  :  Sam 

uel  Colman,  1839. 

This  was  published  as  Letters  from  under  a 
Bridge,  together  with  poems,  by  George  Virtue, 
in  London,  1840  ;  and  under  the  same  title,  with 
the  addition  of  the  "  Letter  to  the  Purchaser  of 
Glenmary,"  by  Morris  &  Willis  in  the  "Mirror 
Library,"  New  York,  1844. 

10.  Loiterings  of   Travel.     3  vols.     London  :   Longman, 
1840. 


APPENDIX.  355 

Published  in  America  as  Romance  of  Travel  ; 
comprising  Tales  of  Five  Lands.  1  vol.  New 
York  :  S.  Colman,  1840. 

11.  The  Sacred  Poems  of  N.  P.  Willis  [Mirror  Library]. 

New  York,  1843. 

12.  Poems  of  Passion,  by  N.  P.  Willis  [Mirror  Library]. 

New  York,  1843. 

13.  Lady  Jane  and  Humorous  Poems  [Mirror  Library]. 

New  York,  1844. 

14.  Lecture  on  Fashion  before  the  New  York  Lyceum. 

New  York,  1844. 

15.  Dashes   at   Life  with   a   Free   Pencil.     New   York  : 

Burgess,  Stringer  &  Co.,  1845. 

16.  Rural  Letters  and  Other  Records  of  Thought  at  Leis 

ure.     New  York  :  Baker  &  Scribner,  1849. 

17.  People  I  Have  Met.     New  York  :  Baker  &  Scribuer, 

1850. 

18.  Life  Here  and  There.     New  York  :  Baker  &  Scrib 

ner,  1850. 

19.  Hurry  graphs.     New  York  :  Charles  Scribner,  1851. 

20.  Summer  Cruise  in  the  Mediterranean.     New  York  : 

Charles  Scribner,  1853. 

21.  Fun  Jottings  ;    or,  Laughs  I  have   taken  a  Pen  to. 

New  York  :  Charles  Scribner,  1853. 

22.  Health   Trip   to  the  Tropics.     New  York  :    Charles 

Scribner,  1854. 

23.  Ephemera.     New  York  :  G.  W.  Simmons,  1854. 

24.  Famous  Persons  and  Places.     New  York  :    Charles 

Scribner,  1854. 

25.  Out  Doors  at  Idlewild  ;  or,  The  Shaping  of  a  Home  on 

the  Banks  of  the  Hudson.  New  York  :  Charles 
Scribner,  1855. 

26.  The  Rag  Bag.     A  Collection  of   Ephemera.     New 

York  :  Charles  Scribner,  1855. 

27.  Paul  Fane  ;  or,  Parts  of  a  Life  Else  Untold.   A  Novel. 

New  York  :  Charles  Scribner,  1857. 


356  APPENDIX. 

28.  The   Convalescent.     New  York  :    Charles   Scribner, 

1859. 

29.  The  Poems,   Sacred,   Passionate,  and   Humorous    of 

N.  P.  Willis.  Complete  edition.  380  pp.  New 
York  :  Clark  &  Maynard,  1868. 

The  following  list  includes  the  works,  edited,  com 
piled,  and  partly  written  by  Willis,  but  not  the  vari 
ous  journals  and  magazines  of  which  he  was  editor. 

1.  The   Legendary.     Edited  by  N.  P.  Willis.     2  vols. 

Boston  :  Samuel  G.  Goodrich,  1828. 

2.  The  Token.     A  Christmas  and  New  Year's  Present. 

Edited  by  N.  P.  Willis.  Boston  :  S.  G.  Goodrich, 
1829. 

3.  American  Scenery.     From  Drawings  by  W.  H.  Bart- 

lett.  The  Literary  Department  by  N.  P.  Willis, 
Esq.  2  vols.  London  :  George  Virtue,  1840. 

4.  Canadian  Scenery.     From  Drawings  by  W.  H.  Bart- 

lett.  The  Literary  Department  by  N.  P.  Willis, 
Esq.  2  vols.  London  :  George  Virtue,  1842. 

5.  The  Scenery  and  Antiquities  of  Ireland.     Illustrated 

by  Drawings  from  W.  H.  Bartlett.  The  Literary 
Portion  of  the  Work  by  N.  P.  Willis  and  J.  Ster 
ling  Coyne,  Esqs.  London  :  George  Virtue,  1842. 

6.  The  Opal.     New  York  :  J.  C.  Hiker,  1844. 

7.  Trenton  Falls.     Edited  by  N.  Parker  Willis.     90  pp. 

New  York  :  George  P.  Putnam,  1851. 

8.  Memoranda  of  the  Life  of  Jenny  Lind.     By  N.  Par 

ker  Willis.  238  pp.  Philadelphia  :  Robert  E. 
Peterson,  1851. 

9.  The  Thought  Blossom.     A  Memento.     New  York: 

Leavitt  &  Allen,  1854. 


INDEX. 


ABERDEEN,  LORD,  151, 186, 189. 

Adams,  John,  principal  of  Phillips 
Academy,  18,  27. 

Adams,  William,  27,  28. 

Album,  The,  49. 

Aldrich,  T.  B.,  298,  33G,  350. 

Alger's  Life  of  Forrest,  31G. 

Allston,  Washington,  91. 

Amaranth,  The,  101. 

Amateur,  The,  travesties  Willis,  90. 

American  Monthly  Magazine,  The, 
20,  21,  51 ;  established  by  Willis, 
82 ;  contributors  to,  33,  84 ;  Wil 
lis's  contributions  to,  84-88  ;  dis 
continuance  of,  98,  99  ;  206,  207, 
265. 

American  Review,  The,  275. 

Andover,  school  life  at,  18-20. 

Annuals,  The,  77-80. 

Antrobus'rf,  Lady,  a  Supper  at,  159. 

Appleton,  T.  G.,  82. 

Apthorp,  Mrs.,  her  seminary  at  New 
Haven,  57. 

Athenaeum,  The,  Willis's  contribu 
tions  to,  164,  216,  217. 

Atlantic  Monthly,  The,  345;  remi 
niscences  of  Willis  in,  351. 

Atlantic  Souvenir,  The,  49,  77. 

Aytoun,  W.  E.,  his  parody  of  Me- 
lanie,  181. 

BAILEY,  JOHN,  an  ancestor  of  Willis, 
4. 

Baillie,  Joanna,  Willis's  acquaint 
ance  with,  160,  163-165,  167  ;  271. 

Barry  Cornwall.     See  Procter. 

Bartlett,  W.  H.,  128,  221,  222,  249. 

Bartlett's  Dictionary  of  American 
isms  quotes  Willis,  341. 

Beattie,  Dr.  Wm.,  97,  149,  166,  330. 

Beecher,  Edward,  35,  94,  95. 

Belknap,  Abigail,  5. 

Benjamin,  Mary,  Willis's  engage 
ment  to,  96,  97,  140 ;  poem  to,  97, 
183. 


Benjamin,  Park,  83,  96. 

Berkeley,  Grantley,  his  duel  with 
Maginn,  196,  197. 

Bermuda,  visit  to,  321. 

Blackwood's  Magazine,  180, 195. 

Blessington,  Margaret,  Countess  of, 
Willis's  introduction  to,  131,  134, 
135 ;  her  receptions  at  Seamore 
Place,  137-139;  her  position  in 
literature  and  society,  137,  138, 
158,  159 ;  her  kindness  to  Willis, 
141,  148,  156,  165,  168;  letter  to 
Willis,  from,  173,  174;  151,  186, 
192,  193,  237,  246,  251,  270,  283. 

Bolney  Priory,  283. 

Bonaparte,  Jerome,  entertains  Wil 
lis  at  Florence,  120. 

Bonaparte,  Lucien,  159. 

Boston,  Willis's  residence  in,  10,  16, 
17,  71-99  ;  literature  and*  society 
in,  83,  92,  93;  Willis's  feelings 
toward,  99. 

Boston  Courier,  86,  87. 

Boston  Latin  School,  16,  17. 

Boston  Recorder,  established  by 
Willis's  father,  9;  his  contribu 
tions  to,  <!8,  49,  52,  71. 

Boston  Statesman,  89,  91. 

Boston  Traveller,  90. 

Botta,  Mrs.  Vincenzo,  293. 

Bowring,  Sir  John,  111,  119,  141, 
194,  271. 

Bristol  Reporter,  49. 

Brother  Jonathan,  The,  Willis  a 
contributor  to,  259,  260,  262,  263 : 
239. 

Brown,  Sexton,  his  epitaph  on  Cae 
sar,  332. 

Brown  University,  Willis's  poem  be 
fore,  100,  104. 

Bryant,  W.  C.,49,  217,  220,  291,  308, 
310,  313. 

Buckingham,  J.  T.,  86-88. 

Bulwer,  E.  L.,  138,  141,  237. 

Bushucll,  Horace,  32,  33,  47. 


358 


INDEX. 


Byron,  Ada,  164,  168. 
Byron,  Lady,  1G4,  168,  216. 


,  Dr.  Kane's  dog,  334. 
Campbell,  Thomas,  a  dinner  with, 

166,  167  ;  149,  245. 
Cape  Cod,  letters  from,  322,  323. 
Carr,  Mr.,  otters  Willis  Secretaryship 

at  Tangiers,  112. 
Censor,  The,  90. 
Channing,  W.  E.,  144,  216  ;  Willis's 

Sketch  of,  164. 
Charleville,  Lady,  156,  157. 
Cheney,  J.,  80,  81. 
Child,  Mrs.  L.  M.,  80,  90,  199. 
Cholera  in  Paris,  the,  114,  115. 
Christian  Examiner,  The,  48. 
Christian  Watchman,  The,  49. 
Christopher  North.     See  Wilson. 
Cincinnati  Monthly  Review,  216. 
Citation  and  Examination  of  Wil 

liam  Shakespeare,  MS.  of  given  to 

Willis,  131. 
Class  Day  poem,  59. 
Clay,  Henry,  221,  242. 
Clilton,  Josephine,  plays  hi  Bianca 

Visconti,  231-233. 
Colvin,  Sidney,  on  Willis,  133. 
Concord,  N.  H.,  school  life  at,  16. 
Congdon,  C.  T.,  his  Reminiscences 

of  a  Journalist  quoted,  260. 
Conic  Sections  Rebellion,  47. 
Connecticut  Journal,  49. 
Constantinople,  visit  to,  126-128. 
Cooper,  J.  F.,  entertains  Willis  in 

Paris,  110,  111;    Willis's  defense 

of,  216  ;  136,  216,  294,  306,  351. 
Cork,  Dowager  Countess  of,  166. 
Corsair,  The,  227;  established  by 

Porter  and  Willis,  239-242;  Wil 

lis's  contributions  to,  243,  244,  247, 

249,  253  ;  Thackeray's  letters  to, 

253-256  ;     suspends    publication, 

259,  260  ;  265. 

Coughton  Court,  visit  at,  172. 
Court  Magazine,  The,  Willis's  con 

tributions  to,  140,  154,  206. 
Cox,  William,  103. 
Culprit  Fay,  The,  217. 

DALHOUSIE,  EARL  OF,  Willis's  visit 
to,  149,  150,  152;  letters  from, 
174,  190  ;  189. 

Dalhousie,  Lady,  149,  190;  letter 
from,  191. 

Dana,  C.  A.,  63,  332. 

Dana,  R.  H.,  350. 

Dawes,  Rufus,  84,  91,  92. 

Day,  Jeremiah,  35. 

De  Forest,  Mrs.,  58. 


Dewey,  Dr.  O.  P.,  308,  310. 

Diary,  Passages  from  Willis's,  165- 
169. 

Dickens,  Charles,  Willis's  acquaint 
ance  with,  264. 

Disraeli,  Benjamin,  138,  237,  252, 
253. 

Doane,  G.  W.,  81. 

Dollar  Magazine,  The,  Willis's  edi 
torship  of,  260. 

D'Orsay,  Count  Alfred,  75,  138,  158, 
166,237,251. 

Douglas,  Francis,  8. 

Douglas,  Lucy,  6,  55. 

Down  Town  Bard ,  lyrics  by,  267. 

Drake,  J.  R.,  217,  292. 

Duganne,  A.  J.  H.,  his  Parnassus  in 
Pillory,  298. 

Durant,  Henry,  Willis's  room-mate 
at  Yale,  31,40. 

Duyckinck,  Evert  A.,  293. 

D wight,  Louis,  27,  28. 

Dwight,  Louisa.    See  Louisa  Willis. 

EASTERN  ARGUS,  THE,  8. 

Edinburgh,  visit  to,  150. 

Edinburgh  Review,  The,  118,  194. 

Eglintoun  Tournament,  244. 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  16,  345. 

England,  Willis's  arrival  in,  130 ; 
residence  in,  135-179  ;  liking  for, 
135-137  ;  second  visit  to.  243-259 ; 
third  visit  to,  276,  283-286. 

English,  T.  D.,  275. 

Erie  Canal,  the  trip  along,  60,  61. 

Europe,  Willis's  life  in,  107-179  ;  in 
fluence  of,  on  his  character  and 
writings,  107-110. 

Everett,  Edward,  16,  18,167;  Ink 
lings  dedicated  to,  206. 

FABLE  FOR  CRITICS,  A,  passage  from, 

302. 
Fane,   Lady    Georgiana,    246,    343, 

344. 

"  Fanny  Fern."     See  Sarah  P.  Wil 
lis. 
Fay,  T.  S.,  edits  the  Mirror,  100; 

his  writings,  102,  103 ;    132,  284, 

291. 

Felton,  C.  C.,  206. 
Fields,  J.  T.,  271,  332,  350. 
Fishwoman's  Son,  The,  a  parody  of 

Willis,  304. 

Flint,  Rev.  Timothy,  216,  217. 
Florence,  Willis's  residence  at,  119- 

125. 
Fonblanque,  A.  W.,  138;    offended 

by  Pencilling?,  192,  193. 
Forget-Me-Not,  The,  77. 


INDEX. 


359 


Forrest,  Edwin,  Willis  involved  in 
his  divorce  suit,  307-321 ;  assaults 
Willis,  312-314. 

Forrest,  Mrs.  Edwin,  vide  supra. 

Forster,  John,  his  Life  of  Landor 
quoted,  133,  2G4. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  G. 

Franklin,  Lady,  1G3. 

Franklin,  Sir  John,  160. 

Fraser,  James,  197,  237. 

Fraser's  Magazine,  reviews  Pencil- 
lings,  194-197. 

Fuller,  Hiram,  273,  276,  286. 

GERMANY,  visit  to,  284,  286. 

Gibson,  John,  teaches  Willis  to  S3ulp, 
121. 

Gift,  the,  82,  262. 

Glenmary,  32,  163,  220  ;  description 
of,  223  ;  Willis's  life  'at,  223-231  ; 
sale  of,  263 ;  264,  285,  329. 

Godey's  Lady's  Book,  Willis  a  con 
tributor  to,  260-203,  266,  286  ;  par 
odied  in,  303,  304. 

Godwin,  Parke,  308-310,  313. 

Goodrich,  S.  G.,  49,  72  ;  his  impres 
sions  of  Willis,  73-75,  77,  81,  89, 
90. 

Gordon,  Duke  of,  visit  to  the,  151, 
152 ;  186  ;  his  opinion  of  Pencil- 
lings,  190. 

Gore  House,  Lady  Blessington  at, 
156,  158,  193,  194,  252. 

Graham's  Magazine,  Willis  a  con 
tributor  to,  260-262,  266. 

Oray,  Dr.  J.  F..  330,  348. 

Greeley,  Horace,  293,  345. 

Greene,  Nathaniel,  91. 

Greenough,  Horatio,  his  friendship 
with  Willis  abroad,  110,  120,  121. 

Grigsby,  H.  B.,  his  reminiscences  of 
Willis  at  college,  47,  48. 

Grinnell,  Cornelia.  See  Cornelia 
Grinnell  Willis. 

Grinnell,  Hon.  Joseph,  121,  287,  321, 
323,  330,  340. 

Grisi,  Julia,  a  supper  with,  159. 

Guiccioli,  Countess,  112,  119,  165, 
168. 

HALLECK,  FITZ  GREENE,  56,  102,  220, 
264,  291. 

Harding,  Chester,  63,  92. 

Harper's  Ferry,  excursion  to,  345. 

Harper's  Monthly  Magazine,  de 
scription  of  Idlewild  in,  332. 

Harvard  College,  17. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  72,  74.  80, 
345. 

Hildreth,  Richard,  83. 


Hillhouse,  James,  his  influence  on 
Willis,  70. 

Hoffman.  C.  F.,  292,  293. 

Holmes,  Dr.  O.  W.,  hio  recollections 
of  Willis,  75;  271,  350,  351. 

Home  Journal,  The,  15,  163,  215, 
266;  established  by  Morris  and 
Willis,  287  ;  character  of,  288 ; 
Willis's  contributions  to,  273,  288- 
290,  293,  322,  325,  328,  330,  338, 
340.  342,  344  ;  associate  editors  of, 
296,  293,  335,  336 ;  304  ;  on  Edwin 
Forrest,  308,  311,  314,  319 ;  337  ; 
its  circulation,  346  ;  347. 

Howe,  Dr.  S.  G.,  with  Willis  in  Paris, 
110,  111 ;  350. 

IDLEWILD,  93,  307  ;  Willis's  country 
seat,  326  -  350  ;  description  of, 
326,  327,  332  note;  naming  of,  328, 
329 ;  345-317,  349. 

Imaginary  Conversations,  Lander's 
intrusted  to  Willis,  131. 

Independent  Chronicle,  The,  G,  7. 

Ireland,  tour  of,  244-246. 

Irving,  Washington,  136,  140,  291  ; 
exchanges  visits  with  Willis,  332, 
333  ;  351. 

Italy,  residence  in,  119-125. 

JACKSON,  ANDREW,  135,  196. 
Jacobs,  Harriet,  276,  350 ;   story  of 

her  escape  from  slavery,  284,  285. 
Jeffrey,  Lord,  a  dinner  with,  150  ; 

194. 
Jenkins,   Joseph,    28,    93 ;    marries 

Mary  WilU>,  30. 
Johnson  family,  The,  of  Stratford, 

Conn.,  55. 

KEMBLE,  CHARLES,  246. 

Kennedy,  J.   P.,  letter  from,  318  ; 

332,  342. 
Killinger,  Freiherr  Von,  letter  from, 

217,  218. 

Knickerbocker  Magazine,  The,  292. 
Knickerbocker    School,    The,    290- 

293. 

LADIES'  COMPANION,  THE,  157,  261. 

Lafayette,  Marquis  of,  110. 

Lamb,  Charles  and  Mary,  a  break 
fast  with,  141. 

Landon,  Miss  L.  E.,  80.  86,  184,  197, 
237,  238. 

Landor,  W.  S.,  Willis's  relations 
with,  131-135  :  letter  from,  134 ; 
141,  271. 

Langdon,  Octavus,  entertains  Willis 
at  Smyrna,  128,  129. 


360 


INDEX. 


Ledger,  The,  66. 

Leech,  John,  165. 

Legendary,  The,   edited  by  Willis, 

72,  75,  80,  81. 
Leigh,  Augusta,  164. 
Leipsic,  The  great  fair  at,  286. 
Lennox,  Lady  Sophia,  151. 
Lincoln,   Mrs.   Abraham,  342,  343; 

letter  from,  344. 
Linonian   Society,  The,  37,  41,  51; 

poem  before  271. 

Literati  of  New  York,  The,  274,  293. 
Livingston,  Miss  Adele,  visit  to  at 

Skaneateles,  62. 
Lockhart,  J.  G.,  77;  his  attack  on 

Pencillings,  185-190, 193, 196, 199. 
London,  residence  in,  137-149,  154- 

169. 

London  Literary  Souvenir,  77. 
London  Morning  Herald,  129. 
London  Morning  Chronicle,  286,  287. 
London   Times,  on   the  Willis  and 

Marryat  affair,  202,  203,  205. 
Longfellow,  H.  W.,  a  fellow  towns 
man  of  Willis,  1-3;  10,  117,  220, 

269  note,  350. 
Lover,  Samuel,  253. 
Lowell,  J.  R.,  correspondence  with 

Willis,  300,  301  ;   his  estimate  of 

Willis,  66,  302 ;  350. 
Lucca,  Baths  of,  122. 
Lunt,  George,  75,  83,  91. 
Lyceum,  The,  49. 
Lynch,  Miss  Anne.     See  Mrs.  Vin- 

cenzo  Botta. 

MCLELLAN,  ISAAC,  20,  83. 

Maclise  Portrait  Gallery,  196  note. 

Macready,  W.  C.,  253,  308. 

Madden,  R.  R.,  his  Life  of  Lady 
Blessington  quoted,  151,  192,  245  ; 
impressions  of  Willis,  156,  157. 

Maginn,  Dr.  William,  reviews  Pen 
cillings,  195,  196,  199;  his  duel 
with  Berkeley,  196,  197. 

Malta,  sojourn  at,  130. 

Marryat,  Frederick,  89,  154,  193; 
his  quarrel  with  Willis,  197-206 ; 
234. 

Marseilles,  letter  from,  109  ;  adven 
ture  at,  124. 

Marsh,  G.  P.,  341. 

Marshall,  Emily,  62;  acrostic  to, 
98. 

Martineau,  Harriet,  her  impressions 
of  Willis,  142-148. 

Mediterranean,  Cruise  up  the,  125- 
129. 

Memorial,  The,  49. 

Metropolitan  Magazine,  The,  Willis's 


contributions  to,  140,  154,  206  ;  its 
review  of  Pencillings,  89,  197-201. 

Michell,  William,  178,  179,  251. 

Millingen,  Dr.,  128. 
I  Mirror  Library,  The,  269. 

Mitford,  Mary  R.,  76,  142,  152. 
!  Moncrieff,  Lady,  150,  159. 
j  Moore,  Thomas,  141,  160,  171 ;   his 
remarks  about  O'Connell,  186, 188, 
192,  193. 

i  Morgan,  Lady  Sydney,  163,  253. 
!  Morris,  G.  P.,  editor  of  the  Mirror 
100  ;    his  character  and  talents 
100-102;    110,  112,  155,  197,  206 
coolness  between,  and  Willis,  236- 
239 ;  establishes  The  New  Mirror 
265;    Evening  Mirror,   273;    Na 
tional  Press  and  Home  Journal, 
286-88  ;  Willis's  affection  for,  296, 
297,  347  ;  303,  327. 

Morse,  S.  F.  B.,  110. 

Motley,  J.  L.,  82,  96. 

Musical  World,  The,  15. 

Mustapha,  the  perfumer,  127,  128, 
213. 

NAHANT,  88,  92,  209,  212. 
I  National  Press.  The,  started  by  Mor 
ris,  286,  287. 
1  Neal,  John,  1,  81,  303. 
\  New  England  Galaxy,  The,  88. 
|  New  Haven  in  1827,  37-39. 

New  Mirror,  The,  established,  265, 
266  ;  Willis's  contributions  to,  266- 
269,  288,  308,  338 ;  suspends  pub 
lication,  272  ;  296,  299,  300. 

New  Monthly  Magazine,  The,  Wil 
lis's  contributions  to,  140,  154, 
155,  161,206,227.249. 

New  World,  The,  239. 

New  York  Albion,  259. 

New  York  Commercial  Advertiser, 
306. 

New  York  Courrier  and  Enquirer, 
242,  307,  320. 

New  York  Courier  des  Etats  Unis, 
332. 

New  York  Evening  Mirror,  edited 
by  Morris  and  Willis,  266,  273, 
275,  286. 

New  York  Evening  Post,  291,  313. 

New  York  Herald,  on  the  Forrest 
testimony.  310,  311. 

New  York  Mirror;  Willis  becomes 
editor  of,  99  ;  described  102,  103  ; 
Willis's  foreign  correspondence  in, 
103,  104,  114,  115-119,  129,  13Q 
153,  172,  184,  185,  188,  189,  197, 
201,  206,  237;  Willis  ceases  to 
edit,  236;  discontinuance  of,  265; 


INDEX. 


361 


miscellaneous  contributions  to,  48, 

141,   155,  193,  215,  221,  223,  231, 

233,  23G,  249,  261 ;  145,  232,  238, 

256,  284,  292. 
New    York,   literature   and  society 

in,  290-294  ;  Willis's  residence  in, 

288-290,  294. 

New  York  Spirit  of  the  Times,  238. 
Niagara,  62,  219,  221. 
Norfolk  Beacon,  47. 
Norton,  Caroline,  141,  184,  237,  253. 
North  American  Review,    The,    2, 

206. 

O'CONNELL,  DANIEL,  186,  188,  192. 
O'Conor,  Charles,  314. 
Opal,  The,  82,  262,  286. 
Otis,  Mrs.  H.  G.,  93. 

5,  N.  Y.,  32,  222,  223,  225-227, 


PAEDOE,  Miss,  160,  163. 

Paris,  residence  in,  110-115;  wed 
ding  trip  to,  178. 

Park  Street  Church,  4,  11,  35,  93, 
94 ;  excommunicates  Willis,  95. 

Parnassus  in  Pillory,  passages  from, 
298-300. 

Parton,  James,  296-298,  335,  336. 

Parton,  Mrs.  James.  See  Sarah  P. 
Willis. 

Patterson,  Commodore,  125,  129. 

Paulding,  J.  K.,  102,  243,  292. 

Payson,  Rev,  Edward,  9. 

Percival,  J.  G.,  70,  80,  184,  217. 

"Peter  Parley."    See  S.  G.  Good- 

PhTliips,  Morris,  288,  2%,  297,  347, 

349. 

Pierpont,  Rev.  John,  343. 
Pike,  Albert,  83,  84. 
Pirate,  The,  prospectus  of,  240. 
Placide,  Harry,  231. 
Poe,   Edgar  A.,   his  relations  with 

Willis,  273  ;  impressions  of  Willis, 

274,  275 ;  206,  217,  269,  293,  295, 

296,  303. 

Poniatowski,  Prince,  120. 
Porter,  Admiral  Ker,  164. 
Porter,  Jane,  Willis's  friendship 

with,  160,  163-166,  170,  172,  176, 

177. 
Porter,  Dr.  T.   O.,  letters  to,  225, 

234,  238,  248,  249 ;  associated  with 

Willis  on  the  Corsair,  239,   240, 

254,  259. 
Portland,  Maine,  Willis's  birthplace, 

1,  8,  10. 

Potomac  Guardian,  6,  7. 
Praed,  W.  M.,  163. 


Procter,  Bryan  Waller,  138;  edits 

Melanie,  180. 
Pumpelly,  Geo.  J.,  32,  223. 

QUARTERLY    REVIEW,    THE,    abuses 
Pencillings,  133,  185-191, 194, 197. 
Quincy,  Edmund,  350. 

RAMSAY,  Lord,  150, 190 ;  letter  from, 

174,  175. 

Rand,  the  portrait  painter,  166,  227. 
Raymond,  H.  J.,  307. 
Remember  Me,  82. 
Republic,  The,  33. 
Rives,  Mr.,  appoints  Willis  attache, 

Robinson,  H.  C.,  a  breakfast  with, 

141. 

Rogers,  Samuel,  149,  165. 
"  Roy,"  Willis's  nom  deplume,  48. 
Ruth  Hall,  caricature  of  Willis  in, 

334-337. 

SARATOGA,  letters  from,  100 ;  de 
scribed  in  Inklings,  209-211 ;  281. 

Sargent's  Magazine,  262. 

Scioto  Gazette,  6. 

Scotland,  visit  to,  149-152. 

Scriptural  poems,  origin  of,  10 ;  esti 
mate  of,  66-69. 

Seamore  Place,  137,  156. 

Sharon  Springs,  letters  from,  322. 

Shaw,  Mrs.  Fanny,  her  friendship 
with  Willis,  160-162,  165, 166, 170. 

Shawsheen  River,  the,  at  Andover, 
20-22. 

Shirley  Park,  at  Croyden,  160,  161, 
169,  170,  278. 

Sigourney,  Mrs.  L.  H.,  75,  80,  81, 84, 
184,261. 

Silliman,  Benjamin,  35,  36,  49. 

Skaneateles,  visit  to,  62. 

Skinner,  Mrs.  Mary,  her  intimacy 
with  Willis,  160 ;  letter  to,  from 
Willis,  161-163;  letter  from,  to 
Jane  Porter,  176  ;  165,  219,  278. 

Slingsby  Papers,  the,  63, 77, 154, 155, 
207,  211. 

Smith,  Forbearance,  76. 

Smith,  Horace  and  James,  138,  246. 

Smyrna,  visit  to,  128,  129. 

Snelling,  W.  J.,  lampoons  Willis. 
88-90,  198,  199. 

Stace,  Mary.   See  MaryStace  Willis. 

Stace,  Gen.  Win.,  170,  171,  243,  262. 

Stanhope,  Sir  Leicester  and  Mrs., 
141,  165,  166. 

Staunton,  Sir  Geo.,  156. 

Stepney,  Lady,  156,  246. 

Steventon,  Vicarage,  283,  284. 


362 


INDEX. 


Stoddard,  R.  H.,   visits  Glenmary, 

228. 

Stone,  W.  L.,  81,  306. 
Storm  King,  named  by  Willis,  327, 

331. 

Storrs,  Dr.  E.  S.,  351. 
Stuart,  Isaac,  28,  30. 
Stuart,  Lady  Dudley,  159. 
Sumner,  Charles,  220,  343. 
Susquehanna,  rafting  on  the,  227. 

TALFOUKD,  Serjeant,  174,  249. 

Taylor,  Bayard,  117, 119 ;  befriended 
by  Willis,  298  ;  299,  331. 

Telegraph,  The,  49. 

Thackeray,  W.  M.,  215;  writes  for 
the  Corsair,  253-256 ;  his  notices 
of  Willis,  256-259 ;  352. 

Thought  Blossom,  The,  82. 

Throckmorton,  Sir  Chas.,  visit  to, 
170,  172. 

Token,  The,  49 ;  edited  by  Willis, 
72-74,  77,  80,  81. 

Trenton  Falls,  first  visit  to,  62  ;  de 
scribed,  76;  letters  from,  322- 
324. 

Truth  :  a  New  Year's  Gift  for  Scrib 
blers,  lampooning  Willis,  89. 

Tupper,  M.  F.,165. 

UNDERCLIFF,  247. 

Unitarians,  11,  16,  17, 18,  32,  93. 

United  Brothers,  Society  of,  poem 

before,  104. 

United  Service  Gazette,  The,  205. 
United  States,  the,  cruise  of,  125, 

129. 

Upper  ten  thousand,  the,  256,  341. 
Utica,  N.  Y.,  visit  to,  61. 

VAIL,  Minister,  156. 

Van  Buren,  John,  33, 34 ;  engaged  in 

Forrest  suit,  34,  316;  challenged 

by  Willis,  317,  318. 
Van  Buren,  Martin,  110,  222. 
"Veritas,"   letters  to  the    Mirror, 

237,  238. 

Verplanck,  G.  C.,293. 
Vienna,  projected  visit  to,  284. 
Vincent,  Wm.,  244,283. 
Virtue,  Geo.,  221,  244. 
Voorhies,  Mrs.,  308. 

WALKER,  Dr.  J.  B.  F.,  medical  rem 
iniscences  of  Willis,  349. 

Wallack,  James,  plays  Tortesa,  232- 
234,  246. 

Washington,  correspondence  from, 
221,  222,  287;  during  the  war, 
342-346. 


Washington  National  Intelligencer, 
263,  266. 

Watts,  Alaric  A.,  77. 

Webb,  J.  W.,  his  attacks  on  Willis, 
242,  307,  320. 

Webster,  Daniel,  commends  Pencil- 
lings,  119  ;  214. 

Weld,  H.  H.,  260. 

Westminster  Review,  The,  111,  194. 

Wheaton,  Henry,  284. 

Whipple,  E.  P.,  332,  350. 

Wikoff,  Henry,  recollections  of 
Willis,  33,  34;  35,  37,  58,  239; 
his  part  in  the  Forrest  case,  34, 
308,  312. 

Willis,  Bailey,  5,  329. 

Willis,  Charles,  5. 

Willis,  Cornelia  Grinnell,  121,  287, 
308,  310,  316,  318,  319,  326r  343, 
346. 

Willis,  Edith,  329. 

Willis,  George,  4. 

Willis,  Grinnell,  294. 

Willis,  Hannah  Parker,  her  char 
acter  and  influence,  13,  14  ;  her 
death,  275. 

Willis,  Imogen,  264,  276,  284,  288. 

Willis,  Julia,  15,  45,  140. 

Willis,  Lilian,  294. 

Willis,  Louisa,  28,  284. 

Willis,  Lucy,  19. 

Willis,  Mary,  30. 

Willis,  Mary  Stace,  her  engagement 
and  marriage,  170,  171, 176,  177  ; 
letter  to,  from  Willis,  176,  177 ; 
219-221,  228,  243,  244  ;  her  death, 
276 ;  278. 

Willis,  Nathaniel,  Sr.,  5,  6. 

Willis,  Nathaniel,  Jr.,  his  education 
and  character,  5,  7,  8,  11-13;  ed 
its  three  newspapers,  8-10 ;  17, 26, 
95. 

Willis,  Nathaniel  Parker,  born  at 
Portland,  1 ;  ancestry,  6-10 ;  home 
and  school  life,  11-17;  at  Andover, 
18-30 ;  at  Yale  College,  31-70 ;  be 
gins  his  literary  career  in  Bos 
ton,  71-82  ;  edits  the  American 
Monthly,  82-100 ;  goes  abroad  as 
foreign  correspondent  of  the  New 
York  Mirror,  100-106 ;  spends  five 
months  in  Paris,  110-115 ;  a  year 
in  Italy,  119-125  ;  half  a  year  in  a 
cruise  up  the  Mediterranean,  125- 
130  ;  four  months  more  in  Italy, 
Switzerland,  and  France,  130 ;  two 
years  in  England,  130-179;  mar 
ries,  177  ;  returns  to  America  and 
travels  and  corresponds  for  the 
Mirror,  219-222  ;  settles  at  Owe- 


INDEX. 


363 


go,  N.  Y.,  223-238  ;  starts  the 
Corsair,  and  makes  a  second  trip 
to  England,  239-259  ;  returns  to 
America  and  edits  Brother  Jona 
than,  259-263;  sells  his  place  at 
Owego  and  moves  to  New  York, 
263;  edits  the  New  Mirror,  265- 
272  ;  the  Evening  Mirror,  273-275 ; 
loses  his  wife  and  makes  a  third 
visit  to  England,  276  ;  taken  ill  in 
London,  283  ;  makes  a  short  visit 
to  Germany  and  returns  to  Amer 
ica,  284 ;  marries  again,  287  ;  edits 
the  Home  Journal  and  makes  his 
residence  in  New  York,  287-307  ; 
becomes  involved  in  the  Forrest 
divorce  case,  307-319  ;  is  assaulted 
by  Edwin  Forrest,  312-314  ;  goes 
on  a  health  trip  to  Bermuda,  the 
West  Indies,  and  the  Southern 
States,  321 ;  buys  a  country  home 
on  the  Hudson,  326 ;  life  at  Idle- 
wild,  329-334  ;  spends  the  first 
year  of  the  war  at  Washington, 
writing  letters  to  the  Home  Jour 
nal,  342-346;  takes  lodgings  in 
New  York,  346,  347  ;  in  failing 
health,  347-349 ;  dies  at  Idlewild, 
350. 

Writings  :  —  Absalom,  48,  49, 
66,  296.  Absent,  the,  155.  A 
L'ABRI.  See  LETTERS  FROM  UNDER 
A  BRIDGE.  Albina  M'Lush,  85,  90. 
American  Literature,  216.  AMER 
ICAN  SCENERY,  128,  221,  222,  244. 
Annoyer,  the,  75,  90,  97.  Bandit 
of  Austria,  the,  251.  Baron  von 
Raffloff,  85.  Belfry  Pigeon,  the, 
183.  Betrothal,  the,  232,  233. 
Better  Moments,  69,  169.  Be 
ware  of  Dogs  and  Waltzing,  277. 
BIANCA  VISCONTI,  231,  232,  234, 
235,  249.  Birth-Day  Verses,  13, 
77,  183.  Born  to  love  Pigs  and 
Chickens,  279.  Broadway,  a 
Sketch,  262.  Brown's  Day  with 
the  Mimpsons,  258.  Burial  of 
Arnold,  the,  48,  59.  By  a  Here 
and  Thereian,  154.  Cabinet,  the, 
299.  CANADIAN  SCENERY,  244, 
247,  248.  Captain  Thompson,  85. 
Chamber  Scene,  155.  Charming 
Widow  of  Sixty,  A,  265.  Chero 
kee's  Threat,  the,  39,  57,  63,  155, 
207.  City  Lyrics,  267,268.  Clois 
ter,  the,  299.  Confessional,  the, 
183.  Contemplation,  82, 98.  CON 
VALESCENT,  THE,  330-333,  340,  343. 
Countess  Nyschriem  and  the 
Handsome  Artist,  the,  277.  Da 


guerreotype  Sketches  of  New 
York,  266.  DASHES  AT  LIFE  WITH 
A  FREE  PENCIL,  reviewed  by 
Thackeray,  256  ;  estimate  of,  276- 
282  ;  262,  286,  325,  338.  Death  of 
Arnold,  the.  See  the  Burial  of 
Arnold.  Death  of  Harrison,  the, 
270.  Death  of  the  Gentle  Usher, 
the,  85.  Dedication  Hymn,  97. 
Departed  Improvisatrice,  the, 
242.  Diary  of  Town  Trifles,  267. 
Dilemma,  the,  216.  Divan,  the, 
242.  Dying  Alchemist,  the,  105. 
Dying  for  Him.  See  TORTBSA  THE 
USURER.  Edith  Linsey,  39,  62, 
63,  65,  76,  85,  88,  155,  161,  183, 
212,  213,  277,  323,  324.  Elms  of 
New  Haven,  the,  271.  Elope 
ment,  the,  84.  EPHEMERA,  216, 
261,  264,  276,  288,  289,  337.  FA 
MOUS  PERSONS  AND  PLACES,  286, 
337.  Fancy  Ball,  the,  84.  Female 
Ward,  the,  92,  279.  First  Im 
pressions  of  Europe.  See  PENCIL- 
LINGS  BY  THE  WAY.  Fitz  Powyg 
and  the  Nun,  261 .  Flirtation  and 
Fox  Chasing,  277.  Florence  Gray, 
183.  Four  Rivers,  the,  153,  223. 
Fragments  of  Rambling  Impres 
sions,  216.  F.  Smith,  63,  85,  88, 
92,  155.  FUGITIVE  POETRY,  97. 
FUN  JOTTINGS,  337.  Gallery,  the, 
242.  Getting  to  Windward,  277. 
Ghost  Ball  at  Congress  Hall,  the, 
280,  281.  Gipsy  of  Sardis,  the, 
127, 129,  155,  212,  213.  Hagar  in 
the  Wilderness,  296.  HEALTH  TRIP 
TO  THE  TROPICS,  A,  322.  High  Life 
in  Europe  and  American  Life,  276. 
HURRYGRAPHS,  322.  Idle  Man,  the, 
86.  Imei  the  Jew,  233.  Imogen 
and  Cymbeline,  265.  Incidents 
in  the  Life  of  a  Quiet  Man,  85. 
Incidents  on  the  Hudson,  154, 
218.  Inkling  of  Adventure,  An, 
85.  INKLINGS  OF  ADVENTURE,  178, 
206;  estimate  of,  207-215;  217, 
247,  276.  Inlet  of  Peach  Blos 
soms,  the,  280.  Invalid  Letters 
from  Germany,  286,  322.  Jeph- 
thah'e  Daughter,  66.  Jottings, 
267.  Jottings  Down  in  London, 
253.  Just  You  and  I,  267.  Kate 
Crediford,  280.  LADY  JANE,  260, 
269-271.  Lady  Rachel,  277.  Lady 
Ravelgold.  86,  167,  252.  Larks  in 
Vacation,  63,  85,  155.  Lazarus 
and  Mary,  68.  Leaves  from  a 
Colleger's  Album,  76.  Leaves 
from  a  Table-Book,  261.  Leaves 


364 


INDEX. 


from  the  Heart  Book  of  Ernest 
Clay,  252,  256,  277,  279.  LECTURE 
ON  FASHION,  272.  LETTERS  FROM 
UNDER  A  BRIDGE,  127,  132,  207, 
223;  estimate  of,  224-231  ;  236, 
242,  248,  249,  2G3,  2G9,  282,  302, 
322,  330.  Letters  of  Horace  Fritz, 
Esq.,  85.  Letter  to  the  Un 
known  Purchaser  and  Next  Oc 
cupant  of  Glenmary,  263.  LIFE 
HERE  AND  THERE,  325.  Lines  on 
leaving  Europe,  13,  179,  236. 

Lines  to  Laura  W ,  58.     Log 

in  the  Archipelago,  A,   130,  206. 

LOITERINGS    OF    TRAVEL.       See    RO- 

MANCE  OF  TRAVEL.  Loiterings  of 
Travel,  153.  Lockings  on  at  the 
War,  342,  343.  Lord  Iron,  181, 
182.  Lost  Letter  Rewritten,  A, 
130.  Love  and  Diplomacy,  154, 
213,  277.  Love  in  a  Cottage,  268. 
Love  in  the  Library.  See  Edith 
Linsey.  Lunatic's  Skate,  the,  17, 
20,  46,  154,  218,  277.  Madhouse 
of  Palermo,  the,  154.  Mad  Senior, 
the,  155.  Marquis  in  Petticoats, 
the,  262.  Meena  Dimity,  279. 
MELANIE  AND  OTHER  POEMS,  161, 
164,  166,  179-181  ;  estimate  of, 
181-184;  236,  270.  MEMORANDA 
OF  THE  LIFE  OF  JENNY  LIND,  324. 
Minute  Philosophies,  88, 206.  Mis 
anthropic  Hours,  52.  Miss  Jones's 
Son,  279.  More  Particularly,  267. 
Morning  in  the  Library,  A,  88. 
My  Adventures  at  the  Tourna 
ment,  244.  My  Hobby  — Rather, 
154.  New  Year's  Verses,  71.  Ni 
agara,  Lake  Ontario,  and  the  St. 
Lawrence,  60,  62,  154,  212,  218. 
Nora  Mehidy,  279.  Notes  from  a 
Scrap  Book,  215.  Notes  upon  a 
Ramble,  85.  On  a  Picture  of  a 
Girl,  81.  On  Dress,  82,  286.  On 
the  Death  of  a  Young  Lady,  57. 
Open  Air  Musings  in  the  City, 
322.  Our  DOORS  AT  IDLEWILD, 
330,  Paletto's  Bride,  251.  Par- 
rhasius,  105,  Pasquali,  the  Tailor 
of  Venice,  85,  252.  Passages  from 
an  Epistolary  Journal,  253.  Pas 
sages  from  Correspondence,  261. 
Paulding  the  Author  disinterred, 
242,  243.  PAUL  FANE,  121,  151  ; 
estimate  of,  338-340.  P.  Calamus, 
Esq.,  84.  Pedlar  Karl,  85,  154, 
207.  Pencil,  the,  242.  PENCIL- 
LINGS  BY  THE  WAY,  85,  100,  104 ; 
estimate  of,  115-119 ;  126, 130, 138, 
152,  153,  157,  178 ;  profits  from, 


184,  185 ;  reception  of,  by  British 
press,  185-199 ;  193,  206,  207,  213; 
translation  of,  218 ;  236,  237,  249, 
253,  269,  284,  298,  325.  PEOPLE  I 
HAVE  MET,  256,  325.  Phantom 
Head  upon  the  Table,  the,  278. 
Pharisee  and  the  Barber,  the,  17. 
Picker  and  Piler,  the,  155,  227, 
277.  Pity  of  the  Park  Fountain, 
the,  268.  Plain  Man's  Love,  A, 
322.  POEM  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE 
SOCIETY  OF  UNITED  BROTHERS,  104. 
POEMS  OF  PASSION,  269,  275.  Poet 
and  the  Mandarin,  the,  280.  Por 
trait,  A,  98.  Power  of  an  Injured 
Look,  the,  82, 262.  Poyntz's  Aunt, 
157,  261,  265.  Psyche  before  the 
Tribunal  of  Venus,  81.  Quarter 
Deck,  the,  242.  RAG-BAG,  THE, 
338.  Revelation  of  a  Previous 
Life,  A,  278.  Revenge  of  the 
Signer  Basil,  the,  155,  213,  277. 
Reverie  at  Glenmary,  230.  RO 
MANCE  OF  TRAVEL,  236,  248;  esti 
mate  of,  249-252  ;  276.  RURAL 
LETTERS,  286,  322.  Ruse,  the,  81. 
SACRED  POEMS,  269.  Sacrifice  of 
Abraham,  the,  48,  49.  Saturday 
Afternoon,  81,  98.  SCENERY  AND 
ANTIQUITIES  OF  IRELAND,  244,  247, 
248.  Scenes  of  Fear,  63,  85,  155. 
Scholar  of  Thebet  Ben  Chorat, 
the,  105.  Scrap  Book,  the,  86. 
Scribblings,  86.  She  was  not 
There,  169.  SKETCHES,  66,  72,  73, 
98.  Sketches  of  Travel,  153,  172, 
221,247.  Slipshoddities,  2G7.  Sol 
dier's  Widow,  the,  81.  Sparklings 
of  Tenth  Waves,  215.  Spirit  Love 

of  lone  S ,  the,  279.     Spring, 

236.  Story  writ  for  the  Beauti 
ful,  A,  243.  String  that  tied  my 
Lady's  Shoe,  the,  100.  Substance 
of  a  Diary  of  Sickness,  the,  88. 
SUMMER  CRUISE  IN  THE  MEDITER 
RANEAN,  A,  325.  Tales  of  Five 
Lands.  See  ROMANCE  OF  TRAVEL, 
Tent  Pitched,  the.  See  LETTERS 
FROM  UNDER  A  BRIDGE.  Tete-a-tete 
Confessions,  86.  Those  Ungrate 
ful  Blidginses,  279.  Thoughts  in 
a  Balcony  at  Daybreak,  155,  168. 
Thoughts  while  making  the  Grave 
of  a  New-Born  Child,  264.  Three 
Weeks'  Trip  to  the  West,  341  -To 

1  100.     To  ,  155.     To  a 

City  Pigeon,  81 ,  106.  To  a  Face 
Beloved,  193,  236.  To  Edith,  from 

the  North.     See  To  M ,  from 

Abroad.      To    Ermengarde,    216, 


INDEX. 


365 


236.     To  M ,  from  Abroad,  97, 

183.  To  my  Mother  from  the 
Apennines,  13,  183.  To  the  Julia 
of  Some  Years  Ago,  289.  Tom 
Fane  and  I,  154,  207.  Torn  Hat, 
the,  82.  TORTESA  THE  USURER, 
233-235,  248,  249,  274,  note.  TREN 
TON  FALLS,  324.  Two  Buckets  in 
a  Well,  2,  note.  Two  Ways  of 
Dying  for  a  Husband.  See  Bi- 
ANCA  VISCONTI  and  TORTESA  THE 
USURER.  Unseen  Spirits,  2G9.  Un 
written  Music,  84,  294.  Unwrit 
ten  Philosophy,  76,  142.  Unwrit 
ten  Poetry,  76,  142.  Upon  the 
Portrait  of  the  Hon.  Mrs.  Stan 
hope,  141.  Usurer  Matched,  the. 
See  TORTESA  THE  USURER.  Vio- 
lanta  Cesarini,  250,  251.  What  I 
saw  at  the  Fair,  286.  While  We 
hold  You  by  the  Button,  267. 


Widow  by  Brevet,  the,  130.  Wife's 

Appeal,  the,  105.    Wigwam  v.  Al- 

macks,  282. 
Willis,   Richard  Storrs,  7,  14,  284, 

298,  308,  310,  316. 
Willis  Sarah  P.,  "  Fanny  Fern,"  14 ; 

writes  Ruth  Hall,  334-337. 
Wilson,  John,  52;   breakfast  with, 

150 ;    reviews  Melanie,   180,   181 ; 

185,  189. 

Winthrop,  Theodore,  58,  343. 
Woodworth,  Samuel,  100. 
Woolwich,  170,  172. 
Woolsey,  T.  D.,  35,  42. 

YALE  COLLEGE,  17;  Willis's  career 
at,  31-70;  condition  of,  in  1827, 
35-37  ;  poem  before,  271. 

Youth's  Companion,  The,  estab 
lished  by  Nathaniel  Willis,  9 ;  49. 

Youth's  Keepsake,  The,  82. 


#tett  of  letter 

Edited  by  Charles  Dudley  Warner. 


WASHINGTON    IRVING.      By   Charles     Dudley 

Warner,  author  of  "  In  the  Levant,"  etc. 

NOAH  WEBSTER.     By  Horace  E.  Scudder,  author 

of  "  Men  and  Letters,"  "  Childhood  in  Literature  and  Art,"  etc. 

HENRY  D.  THOREAU.     By  Frank  B.  Sanborn. 
GEORGE   RIPLEY.     By  Octavius  Brooks  Frothing- 

ham,  author  of  "  Transcendentalism  in  New  England." 

JAMES    FENIMORE    COOPER.     By   Thomas   R. 

Lounsbury,  Professor  of  English  in  Yale  College. 

MARGARET     FULLER    OSSOLI.      By    Thomas 

Wentworth  Higginson,  author  of  "  Malbone,"  "  Oldport  Days,"  etc. 

RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON.     By  Oliver  Wendell 

Holmes,  author  of  "  The  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table,"  etc. 

EDGAR  ALLAN  POE.     By  George  E.  Woodberry, 

author  of  "  Studies  in  Letters  and  Life,"  etc. 

NATHANIEL   PARKER  WILLIS.     By  Henry  A. 

Beers,  Professor  of  English  Literature  in  Yale  College. 

BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN.     By  John  Bach  McMas- 

ter,  author  of  "  History  of  the  People  of  the  United  States." 

WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT.     By  John  Bigelow, 

author  of  "  Molinos  the  Quietist,"  etc. 

WILLIAM    GILMORE    SIMMS.     By   William    P. 

Trent,  Professor   of   English   Literature   in   the   University  of  the 
South,  Sewanee,  Tenn. 

GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS.     By  Edward  Gary. 
BAYARD  TAYLOR.     By  Albert  H.  Smyth. 

Other  volumes  to  be  announced  hereafter.     Each  volume,  "with 
Portrait,  ibmo,  gilt  top,  $1.23  ;  half  morocco,  $2.30. 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN   AND   COMPANY, 

4  PARK  ST.,  BOSTON;  11  EAST  I;TH  ST., TSTEW  YORK. 


"WASHINGTON    IRVING." 

Mr.  Warner  has  not  only  written  with  sympathy,  mi 
nute  knowledge  of  his  subject,  fine  literary  taste,  and  that 
easy,  fascinating  style  which  always  puts  him  on  such 
good  terms  with  his  readers,  but  he  has  shown  a  tact, 
critical  sagacity,  and  sense  of  proportion  full  of  promise 
for  the  rest  of  the  series  which  is  to  pass  under  his 
supervision. — New  York  Tribtine. 

It  is  a  very  charming  piece  of  literary  work,  and  pre 
sents  the  reader  with  an  excellent  picture  of  Irving  as  a 
man  and  of  his  methods  as  an  author,  together  with  ar 
accurate  and  discriminating  characterization  of  his  works 
- — Boston  Joiirnal. 

It  would  hardly  be  possible  to  produce  a  fairer  or  more 
candid  book  of  its  kind.  — Literary  World  (London). 

"NOAH    WEBSTER." 

Mr.  Scudder's  biography  of  Webster  is  alike  honorable 
to  himself  and  its  subject.  Finely  discriminating  in  all 
that  relates  to  personal  and  intellectual  character,  schol 
arly  and  just  in  its  literary  criticisms,  analyses,  and 
estimates,  it  is  besides  so  kindly  and  manly  in  its  tone,  its 
narrative  is  so  spirited  and  enthralling,  its  descriptions 
are  so  quaintly  graphic,  so  varied  and  cheerful  in  their 
coloring,  and  its  pictures  so  teem  with  the  bustle,  the 
movement,  and  the  activities  of  the  real  life  of  a  by-gone 
but  most  interesting  age,  that  the  attention  of  the  reader 
is  never  tempted  to  wander,  and  he  lays  down  the  book 
with  a  sigh  of  regret  for  its  brevity.  — Harper's  Monthly 
Magazine. 

It  fills  completely  its  place  in  the  purpose  of  this  se 
ries  of  volumes.  —  The  Critic  (New  York). 

"HENRY    D.    THOREAU." 

Mr.  Sanborn's  book  is  thoroughly  American  and  truly 
fascinating.  Its  literary  skill  is  exceptionally  good,  and 
there  is  a  racy  flavor  in  its  pages  and  an  amount  of  exact 
knowledge  of  interesting  people  that  one  seldom  meets 
with  in  current  literature.  Mr.  Sanborn  has  done  Tho- 
reau's  genius  an  imperishable  service.  — American  Church 
Review  (New  York). 

Mr.  Sanborn  has  written  a  careful  book  about  a  curious 
man,  whom  he  has  studied  as  impartially  as  possible: 
whom  he  admires  warmly  but  with  discretion  ;  and  the 
story  of  whose  life  he  has  told  with  commendable  frank 
ness  and  simplicity. — New  York  Mail  and  Express. 

It  is  undoubtedly  the  best  life  of  Thoreau  extant. — < 
Christian  Advocate  (New  York). 


"GEORGE    KIPLEY." 

He  has  fulfilled  his  responsible  task  with  admirable 
fidelity,  frank  earnestness,  justice,  fine  feeling,  balanced 
moderation,  delicate  taste,  and  finished  literary  skill.  It 
is  a  beautiful  tribute  to  the  high-bred  scholar  and  gener 
ous-hearted  man,  whose  friend  he  has  so  worthily  por 
trayed. —  Rev.  William  H.  Channing  (London). 

"JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER." 
We  have  here  a  model  biography.  The  book  is  charm 
ingly  written,  with  a  felicity  and  vigor  of  diction  that  are 
notable,  and  with  a  humor  sparkling,  racy,  and  never 
obtrusive.  The  story  of  the  life  will  have  something  of 
the  fascination  of  one  of  the  author's  own  romances.  — 
New  York  Tribune. 

Prof.  Lcunsbury's  book  is  an  admirable  specimen  of 
literary  biography.  .  .  .  We  can  recall  no  recent  addition 
to  American  biography  in  any  department  which  is  supe 
rior  to  it.  It  gives  the  reader  not  merely  a  full  account 
of  Cooper's  literary  career,  but  there  is  mingled  with  this 
a  sufficient  account  of  the  man  himself  apart  from  his 
books,  and  of  the  period  in  which  he  lived,  to  keep 
alive  the  interest  from  the  first  word  to  the  last.  —  New 
York  Evening  Post. 

"MARGARET  FULLER  OSSOLI." 
Here  at  last  we  have  a  biography  of  one  of  the  noblest 
and  the  most  intellectual  of  American  women,  which  does 
full  justice  to  its  subject.  The  author  has  had  ample 
material  for  his  work,  —  all  the  material  now  available 
perhaps,  —  and  has  shown  the  skill  of  a  master  in  his 
use  of  it.  ...  It  is  a  fresh  view  of  the  subject,  and  adds 
important  information  to  that  already  given  to  the  public. 
—  REV.  DR.  F.  H.  HEDGE,  in  Boston  Advertiser. 

"RALPH    WALDO   EMERSON." 

Dr.  Holmes  has  written  one  of  the  most  delightful 
biographies  that  has  ever  appeared.  Every  page  sparkles 
with  genius.  His  criticisms  are  trenchant,  his  analysis 
clear,  his  sense  of  proportion  delicate,  and  his  sympa 
thies  broad  and  deep.  —  Philadelphia  Press. 


"EDGAR    ALLAN    POE." 

Mr.  Woodberry  has  contrived  with  vast  labor  to  con 
struct  what  must  hereafter  be  called  the  authoritative 
biography  of  Poe,  a  biography  which  corrects  all  others, 
supplements  all  others,  and  supersedes  all  others.  —  The 
Critic  (New  York). 


"NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS." 
Prof.  Beers  has  done  his  work  sympathetically  yet  can. 
didly  and  fairly  and  in  a  philosophic  manner,  indicating 
the  status  occupied  by  Willis  in  the  republic  of  letters, 
and  sketching  graphically  his  literary  environment  and 
the  main  springs  of  his  success.  It  is  one  of  the  best 
books  of  an  excellent  series.  —  Buffalo  Times. 

"BENJAMIN    FRANKLIN." 

One  of  tha  most  interesting  and  instructive  volumes 
of  the  series.  .  .  .  The  pictures  which  are  given  of  the 
momentous  period  in  which  he  lived  are  full  of  vigor, 
and  betray  an  astonishing  amount  of  research  in  many 
directions. — Boston  Gazette. 

We  have  had  many  lives  of  Franklin,  but  none  so  ab 
solutely  impartial  as  this,  and  although  it  is  short  it  omits 
no  important  fact  that  can  help  to  reveal  the  man.  .  .  . 
Mr.  McMaster  telh  his  story  with  extreme  charm  of 
narration.  —  Hartford  Courant. 


"WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT." 
There  were  many  aspacts  in  which  Mr.  Bryant  pre 
sented  himself  as  a  subject  for  biography.  He  was  a  chief 
in  the  department  of  American  journalism.  He  was  a 
controlling  power  in  American  politics.  He  was  also  a 
man  of  letters  in  the  pure  and  simple  sense  of  the  term. 
One  might  have  known  him  well  in  either  of  these  rela 
tions  and  yet  had  no  thought  of  the  others.  Mr.  Bige- 
low  has,  it  seems  to  us,  done  justice  to  all. —  The  Church 
man  (New  York). 


"WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS." 
As  a  biography  it  will  rank  with  the  best  in  the  series. 
It  is  clear  in  style,  full  in  statement  of  fact,  impartial, 
discriminating  and  critical,  and  at  the  same  time  gener 
ous  and  sympathetic.  Professor  Trent  has  performed  a 
difficult  task  with  rare  discretion  and  good  taste.  —  Chris 
tian  Union  (New  York). 

*#*  For  sale   by  nil  Booksellers.     Sent,  post-paid,  on   receipt 
of  price  by  the  Publishers, 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN   AND   COMPANY, 
BOSTON   AND   NEW   YORK. 


RETURN  TO  the  circulation  desk  of  any 
University  of  California  Library 

or  to  the 

NORTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 
Bldg.  400,  Richmond  Field  Station 
University  of  California 
Richmond,  CA  94804-4698 

ALL  BOOKS  MAY  BE  RECALLED  AFTER  7  DAYS 

•  2-month  loans  may  be  renewed  by  calling 
(510)642-6753 

•  1-year  loans  may  be  recharged  by  bringing 
books  to  NRLF 

•  Renewals  and  recharges  may  be  made  4 
days  prior  to  due  date. 

DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 


;-EB252QUi 


12,000(11/95) 


WilllB. 


Parker 


